Critical Craft
by Mitchmaniac
Summary: Based on the series Mage: The Ascension by White Wolf, this is a story about a few college students who stumble upon the world of magic. It's your number one source for ghost chameleons,fire squids and giant metal armadillos. R and R would be cool. Thanks
1. Prologue

Freaks, Geeks and Guns

_Prologue-_

Dan whistled to himself tunelessly as he walked down the street. He wished he knew some good drinking songs. But, well, after searching his brain for a few minutes...

He realized he didn't. Not at all. Oh well.

In about an hour, he would care less about that anyway. Heck- he'd probably make up a good many drinking songs himself. Ones that didn't rhyme didn't make sense, and more than likely involved him dancing on the bar table with some girl named Chloe.

Dan sighed. Good times.

He had had a long day. Dan enjoyed teaching, but doing the same thing over and over again, the same HARD thing, he might add, for someone who totally wasn't getting it- is difficult and frustrating. So now he was looking forward to heading down to Vertigo, relaxing, hanging out, maybe throwing back a few beers, and just having a good time.

Suddenly Dan froze in his tracks. He closed his eyes immediately and turned on his inner sense. The pattern of reality was played out for him and-

Oh CRAP.

Dan leapt for the alley way and cover.

Too late. Dan felt the sniper's bullet cut through the edge of his stomach right under his ribs. He gasped in pain, and rolled into the alley. Breathing hard, he quickly checked himself. No major organs. It just hurt like hell. Plus it was bleeding, dribbling down his shirt and onto the ground.

This never FREAKING ends. Dan could feel himself getting uncharacteristically furious. Why couldn't they just leave him alone?

He took a deep, shuddering breath, and forced himself to relax. He didn't start this. He didn't ask for this. He didn't do anything to these people. But he was going to end it.

NOW.

He closed his eyes once more and took a moment to try shutting out the pain in his side. After a moment he felt his perception spread out and up, as if he were in a helicopter. He could see and feel the area around him.

Ok. Sniper on the building to his left. He has no shot right now, and if he moved down this alleyway and out the other side, the sniper would have no chance of...

Shit.

Dan focused his awareness, like binoculars, on the area closer around him. It was definitely a well organized ambush- Dan had to give them that much. Though they obviously weren't counting on the sniper only grazing him. Dan grinned.

They were about to find out just how still capable he was.

He silently counted as he spotted groups of men in black moving around him. There were six a few buildings back, behind him to his right. They were quickly approaching his position in the alleyway but from farther out. He shifted his awareness again, his eyes twitching a little.

There were... three, four, five- six coming out of the building the sniper was stationed on a few streets back. Maybe if he moved-

No. Crap. He sensed two more groups of three, both approaching either side of the building in front of him. He was going to be pinned in.

And the real kick-in-the-pants is that all 18 Black-hats were wearing black trench coats, sunglasses (a few of them were indeed wearing black hats) and of course, Dan's personal favorite- semi automatic weapons.

Wonderful.

Dan opened his eyes, wincing at the wound in his side. Ok. He had about a minute until they caught up. First thing's first, he had to do something about that sniper.

But how was he going to- Oh. That's right, of course.

Dan smiled to himself at the irony. He waved a hand in front of him, and was able to quickly find the bullet that had passed through his side. He wrenched it out of the building in front of him and concentrated on it.

Nothing quite bonded two people together like a bullet. There was a strong Correspondence now between the bullet, Dan, and the man who had shot him.Dan reached out his left hand in front of him, concentrating on the bullet. Time to go fishing... let's see. Ah. Gotcha.

Dan grabbed with his left hand, and pulled out a very confused Black Hat, seemingly from thin air, by the jacket lapel. It wasn't hard since he had managed to make the space in front of where the sniper was stationed correspond with the space in front of Dan. For all intents and purposes the man had been directly in front of him, for a fraction of a second.

Dan then quickly weaved an effect with his right hand- this one was harder since he had nothing but guesses to go on, but Dan had done it plenty of times before.

The Black Hat with the sniper rifle, hanging from his jacket, turned around, startled- "What the hell is-"

Dan winked at him and whispered him some quick advice-

"Learn to fly".

The man's eyebrow's lifted and he began "What do you-"

But then Dan swiveled on his heels, and jammed the man into the portal he had just made. He then turned fully to the right, and began running in that direction. When he got to the end of the alley, he chanced a glance to his right.

The group of six there all raised automatic weapons in his direction. But then one of the men in the front frowned.

"Do you hear something stra-" began the Black Hat at the front. But he was cut off as the sniper Dan had just grabbed hurtled down through the air, screaming, and landed on directly on top of the frowning man. The other two managed to get hit pretty hard as well, and all four of them sprawled on the ground over each-other, unconscious. The three behind them all tripped over the slumping bodies, their weapons scattering.

Good. Dan had wasted very little energy on them, and four of them were unconscious now. The other three would be set back enough so that he could either lose them, or fry them later.

Dan guessed that he was going to need almost all of his energy by the end of this little skirmish. There were at least twenty Black Hats after him, probably more in reserve farther out in each direction. That was usually how they did things.

Extreme, albeit efficient, overkill.

Dan grinned wickedly. He could do overkill too.

He called on a tiny portion of his inner reserves and increased his speed down the street exponentially. It was a simple matter of locating the pattern that was his kinetic energy as he ran forward, and magnifying it, almost like he was pushing himself while running. That gave Dan an odd mental picture. He shook it off.

The group of three that had been approaching from the right before were now just emerging from an alleyway and crossing the street in front of him.

"Yo!" He called out, as he rocketed across the empty street and stretched out his left arm, swinging it in a sharp, wide movement as he flew by them, little more than a blur to their eyes. He managed to catch all three of them with his arm, and they catapulted through the air and into glass from a store front window.

Dan grimaced. That probably really hurt.

He ran past themm barely losing any speed, and flew down the alleyway. He closed his eyes again briefly, still running, trying to reassess the situation. How many left?

His panoramic view returned, and he could see and feel several blocks now, all at once. Let's see- the group of six behind him on the left was moving nearly as fast as he was. Dan shivered at what the Black Hats must do to themselves to get that kind of speed with just metal enhancements.

There was still another group of three ahead on his left as well and...

Woops, car in front of him. Dan let go of his panoramic vision and jumped lightly, his momentum carrying him across a street, neatly over a car at a stop light.

He zoomed down another alleyway. Dan figured he was traveling at about 40 miles an hour at present. His shoes were quickly heating up. He sighed. He would need a new pair again after this.

Suddenly a Black Hat stepped out of a building in front of him way down on the other side of the alley holding something on his shoulder. Dan stepped down hard on the ground, skidding several meters before stopping. He was still a few meters away when he stopped in front of the man with-

A rocket launcher. Just what Dan always wanted.

Dan danced lightly on his feet, trying not to yelp at how hot his shoes were. He pointed a finger at the man in front of him. The man was wearing dark sunglasses, a black coat, and a dark colored hat with a wide brim. He looked like an evil cowboy.

"Dude- rocket launchers are way dangerous." Dan said, acting like he was looking out for the Black Hat's best interests.

The man nodded, in quick sharp bursts. It was like watching a switch turn on/off, on/off.

"The weapons of the Technocracy, of which I count myself one, are indeed most lethal to those who present extreme threats to Humanity."

Dan gaped. "ME a threat to humanity? Who's the one carrying a ROCKET LAUNCHER with civilians-"

But he didn't get to finish. Because just then, the man dropped to one knee, and fired.

Not good. Instinctively Dan threw out a hand, and concentrated on the pattern in and around the weapon. He could see the collecting force there. Suddenly it leapt out of the weapon. Dan immediately grabbed the air with his fist, seizing the kinetic force from the rocket. He flung his hand out to the right, redirecting the energy. The rocket zoomed through the air at him, but only made it a meter before it curved dramatically and smashed into a wall, sending bricks and dust and heat in all directions.

Dan covered his face with his hands, throwing up a heat shield that glowed red around him as heat was dispersed harmlessly into the air. He leapt back, missing the worst of the debris. Once the dust settled, he saw a black clothed arm, sticking out from a half collapsed wall.

"I TOLD you rockets were dangerous" Dan said, this time real anger in his voice.

Damnit. He had wanted do this without any casualties. But this lot was fully brainwashed. They were like machines themselves.

Something flickered at the edge of Dan's mind. Not AGAIN.

Dan spun around and flung out his hands, arms outstretched, palms open. He put up a force shield. The air immediately filled thick with semi-automatic gunfire. He could barely see anything. The gunfire automatically redirected around him, hitting just about everything else besides Dan- brick walls, street lights, windows.

He heard several screams from behind him. Unaware civilians-Sleepers, were getting hit. Damnit.

Dan did not get angry often. But this had gone too far.

They were six shooters in front of him now, in a semi-circle so they didn't hit each other. They had taken up positions behind cars and from out of windows in stores. And Dan was standing in the middle of a bullet-free island, where Sleepers all around him were screaming and running in terror, and some of them were being gunned down.

His force shield flared yellow in front of him as it pushed hundreds of bullets out of his way at once. It deepened into orange, and then red. Dan grimaced, dropping to one knee. He couldn't hold this for too much longer, and there was nowhere to go. If he lost concentration for even a moment- if another black hat came up behind him- it was all over.

"No" he said, under his breath.

He couldn't lose here. He owed too much to his students.

"NO" he said louder, feeling hundreds upon hundreds of bullets push against his shield, quickly loading his mind beyond capacity.

He owed too much to Wizard. He owed too much to the Library. He owed too much... to his brother.

The gunfire stopped. They had all started firing at the same time, and now they were reloading at the same moment.

"NO!!" Dan screamed, losing control and using Prime to push at the street concrete a few feet in front of him as hard as he could.

Suddenly the area around him began growing unnaturally dim. Night had fallen only a short time ago, and the horizon still glowed faintly in the memory of the day's sun. Streetlights seemed to lose their shine, the new moon over head suddenly seemed to fade and disappear. And it got quiet too. People were still screaming, but abruptly their voices sounded far away though they were just down the street.. The sounds of the technocrats reloading their guns vanished. Dan couldn't even hear the sound of his own ragged breath any longer.

The gunmen up at Dan, whose eyes were burning in fury. They looked around them, noticing the dimming light and the sudden lack of any sound, and their eyes widened in terror.

Using his knowledge of the sphere of Forces, Dan collected the light and sound energy from the area, especially all the sound that those guns had given off, and twisted it, changed it- into seismic energy. He added that energy to the kinetic energy he had just used on the ground, and created a power similar to the effects of a 747 crash landing into the street. Together his efforts slammed into the street in front of him like a thousand jackhammers.

The silent effect vanished, and loud breaking sounds pierced the air, as cracks appeared and grew, more and more. The concrete buckled in front of him, large pieces falling down into the earth, one section of concrete even buckled and ripped free from the ground beneath it, like a large ponderous wave of concrete. It rolled towards the technocrats, several feet of concrete being displaced every second.

The Black Hats looked up just in time to have the ground beneath their feet roll upwards violently, flinging three of them into the air. The other three dived out of the way, into a store on the other side of the street. The cracks traveled underneath the store and the glass shattered as if it were paper-thin ice. Cracks appeared in the brick walls and traveled up the front of the store. With a groan, the whole front collapsed. It fell onto the remaining three surprised Black Hats. A huge dust cloud flew up and obscured everything for a full minute.

The screams died down, and Dan heard sirens. He collapsed onto his knees, heaving. That had been stupid. He had used way more of his inner energy, his quintessence, than he had meant to spend. Well, there was plenty of destruction around here. It would be easy to pick up some more energy released by all the destroyed matter and-

Gunfire erupted behind him again, and Dan rolled instinctively. Bullets whizzed over his head. He was gasping now, and the pain in his side was starting to really freaking hurt. It was like a searing hot brand in his side. His vision began blurring as well. He put a hand to his side. He was losing a lot of blood.

He needed to get out of here, find cover, and he needed to do it NOW. He glanced behind him. It was the three he had met in the beginning. The ones who had tripped over the sniper he had dumped on top of them. They had caught up. And one of them was raising a rocket launcher. For the love of-

Dan used the cover from the dust in the air to slip into an alley way and run as hard as he could. He stumbled sometimes from his blurred vision and the pain in his side. He could only manage wimpy human speed this time.

He heaved and winced, breathing was starting to hurt. He emerged from the alleyway, and made his way across the street. There was a big building there. Good. He could use it for cover, and then get the hell out of dodge.

As he reached the building, he heard loud pounding music, and realized that he had unconsciously made his way to Vertigo. The dance club he had been going to originally. No. This wasn't good, way too many people, he-

Dan turned around. The three were already on top of him. One of them raised a rocket launcher and shot it. He was scant feet away.

Was he nuts? He would kill himself!

Dan flung out his hand, sending the first rocket off course meters away .It spun out of control and exploded into a building down the street. There was a bone-grating explosion. Flames licked the air and debris flew into the night sky.

The music coming from the dance club stopped.

Tears sprung up in Dan's eyes, as he fought to stay conscious. Pain and exhaustion were catching up with him. His shirt was soaked in red now.

The Black Hat on the left suddenly dropped to a knee. He had a rocket launcher as well.

Dan shouted an obscenity and clumsily raised a heat shield and a force shield. The patterns held together in front of him like soggy spider webs about to fall apart. The rocket stopped in mid-air via his force shield, and exploded. The heat washed away from the heat shield, but the force hit him and hard. He rocketed backwards, slamming into the doors and causing them to shatter inward. Sharp pain bit into his back and he was flung through the room, spinning dizzily through the air. He saw men and women spinning around dreamily as he flew over their heads, and fell on something that cracked as he landed on it.. He hoped it wasn't ribs. His or anyone else's.

This was not one of Dan's better days.

(read the rest at www.criticalcraft.tk)


	2. Critical Craft: Freaks, Geeks and Guns

_Two hours earlier, Boston College, Apartment 104 _

"Mirvin, if you don't get away from that computer right now, I'm going to chuck both it, and you, out the window. You are going to end an old stupid geezer if you don't get out more." Hal was only half yelling this time. He was beginning to give up on making Mirvin actually live a little. He was-

"I can't leave the room yet. The star trek forums still need me" came the nasally reply from upstairs. Hal really wished that Residence Education had given them someone different for a roommate. ANYONE. He would've been _fine_ with a llama, or a robot.

The stupid kid was wasting his life, and the worst part was that it actually made Hal angry for some reason; it was completely-

"Oh no! Star Trek Voyager is on!" Hal heard Mirvin say, as his freakishly large head suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. Hal slapped a hand to his face.

It was the only thing that ever got that kid out of his room. Hal just knew there was a real person behind those giant horn-rimmed glasses, suspenders, greasy brown hair and the star trek t-shirt.

Hal's grouchy mood deepened. He began to approach Mirvin, who had now reached the bottom of the stairs. He was skittering toward Hal on his tiny legs, his head pointed down and away. Mirvin was concertingly trying to ignore his bulkier, intimidating roommate, as if simply not looking at him would make Hal go away. Hal was about put out a hand to halt Mirvin in his comical dance-walk, but just then the phone rang. Hal cursed. That's right- he had been expecting a phone call from his hockey coach. Hal ran to the phone. Mirvin would have to wait.  
  
While talking on the phone with his coach, Hal couldn't help but be distracted by the conversation in front of him. Mirvin was on the couch now, looking out of place as he tried to rigidly sit on their big apartment couch. It sagged with even Mirvin's negligible weight, appearing to swallow his lower body. Two of Hal's other roommates, Derek and Collin, were sitting on other side of Mirvin and picking up where Hal had left off.  
Derek was sitting to the left of Mirvin. He had a bit of those 'pushy-jock' genes in him, and it showed physically. He made Mirvin looked like a chew toy when he sat next to him. Derek was delivering his ultimatum at present.  
  
"Mirvin, you are going with us tonight. If I have to come home one more time from the bar and hear your nasally voice sniff 'Oh I'm so alone, no one cares about Mirvin' I'm going to shoot you in the head. Repeatedly. For once, Hal has a point. You are coming."

Instead of answering, Mirvin continued squirming and trying to get the TV remote away from Derek, who was holding it out of Mirvin's limited reach with very little effort. Collin, who had been watching something on TV, suddenly paused and looked up in thought after hearing Derek's comment.  
  
"Hmm, well... I HAVE been wanting to call in a favor from my friend in the biology lab." He brightened. "I could get some chloroform; it would be easy to bring the little guy down that way!"

Derek turned to glare at Collin without lowering his arm, which Mirvin was now trying to climb up to reach the prize of the TV remote at the top, again with little success.

"No, he can't be unconscious. It has to be fun."  
Collin looked at Derek, a blank expression on his face.  
There was silence. Derek's expression hardened.  
"Fun for him I mean. Not you."  
Collin pouted. "Awww but I hear that chloroform makes people all sleepy and they say funny things. Come on, we gotta try it."  
  
"Hal? Hal? You get all that?"  
Hall suddenly realized that he had just totally zoned out on his hockey coach. He told him that- yes he had gotten the times of the practices and everything, and said goodbye.  
  
Right as he hung up, the last missing roommate, Rich, walked in carrying part of a hockey stick on his shoulder like a rifle. He marched in the door, and gravely placed his stick in a corner, as if it were a weapon. Hal resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. The kid didn't even use it to freakin _play hockey_. There _had_ to be some law against that.  
  
He glanced back at the couch. Mirvin was muttering about "Star Trek: Voyager" under his breath, and still trying to climb Derek's muscular arm. Collin and Derek were talking about what they could possibly do tonight, anyway.

They hadn't noticed Rich enter yet, since they were on a couch facing away from the door. He quietly snuck up behind them, and then suddenly grabbed both their shoulders, pushed his head in between them and grinned widely.

"Vertigo?" he asked, suggestively.

Collin turned around, startled "Whoa man, you're like a ninja or something." If it were possible, Hal would say that Rich's smile got even wider. Hal frowned. Collin shouldn't encourage him like that. But still... it had been a while since they had been to that club...

"Oh no- there will many persons there. And I cannot enter a building named after a motion sickness- thank you, thank you anyway." Mirvin said with feigned sincerity, now practically dangling from Derek's forearm.

Derek smiled and stood up, Mirvin hanging off his arm like a worm on a hook. "Mirvin, you are coming. If need be I'll carry you there..." He paused dramatically. "What shape you arrive there in is up to you."  
"Uh oh, that sounds dangerous", Mirvin said, just before losing a hold on Derek's arm and tumbling into the ground.  
Hal wasn't sure whether it was the booze or what, but he suddenly felt boisterously happy. Here he was back in Vertigo again after so long away. The pounding music was just far enough away to allow conversation, the lights turning everything odd colors, and best of all- beer. With MIRVIN no less! He clapped a hand on Mirvin's shoulder, rocking the kid's frame violently. How could he not be happy? MIRVIN, his anti-social roommate was at a BAR with him. And he was DRINKING! And he was even acting like a normal kid. Getting him drunk seemed to have a de-nerdifying effect on him.  
  
"Dude Mirvin," Hal began, after downing another beer, "You came with us tonight. It's unbelievable. And you dropped that weird nasal voice."  
  
Hal paused, and then addressed his next comment to a near-drunk Derek, who was dancing half-hazardly with two or three girls right behind Mirvin. "Dude, I told you, man, I knew it was fake." Derek appeared to be busy grinding, and so Hal turned his attention back to Mirvin, who was looking forlornly at a smashed laptop case in his lap.

"I think you broke him" Mirvin said sadly, stroking the case, actually putting irony into his voice.

Hal laughed rowdily and slapped Mirvin hard on the back again. "Ha ha! Don't worry little bud; you have like 6 more at home! Have another drink!" Hal was suddenly distracted by something, and Mirvin took the opportunity to whisper a word of encouragement to his laptop "Do not worry Leonardo; I will fix you as soon as possible. You will kick posterior again in no time interval of any real length."

"Anyway Mirvin, like I was saying- no one would hold it against you if you dropped the act permanently. Like you wouldn't lose your Nerd-Club card or anything would you? I mean-"

At that moment a voice from behind cut him off. Again.

"Hey guys, look what I found in the bathroom" Hal was suddenly afraid to turn around then, but he did anyway. It was Rich. He was holding Collin by the jacket lapel. Collin looked like he was about to fall over, he also looked oddly pale- like he had just been sick. Hal noticed that Rich was wearing his grey jacket with the blue arrows on the sleeve again. And there was a distinctive hump in the back, by his neck. It was the decapitated hockey stick. Rich had taken the plastic head off of it, so he could use it like a staff.

He wondered how Rich would feel if he was decapitated and jammed into some punk's jacket? No. This was ridiculous. Hal tried not to think about it. But still, there was something inherently _wrong_ about defacing a perfectly good hockey stick like that, there just was. He decided to talk to Collin, before he used Rich's mutilated hockey stick to carve him a new one.  
  
"Yo, Collin. What were you doing in the bathroom? We've been lookin' for you man, where've you been?"  
  
Collin looked at Hal in a way that made Hal sure that Collin had some sort of secret. Probably something really dumb that made Collin think he was God, by the looks of it.  
  
Hal swiveled on the bar chair to look at Collin. "What is it, man? What could you possibly be so happy about?"  
  
Collin smiled and then gave Hal an exaggerated wink. "I was mackin it in the bathroom. Ohh yeah, you know it." Collin tried to wink again, but it looked more like a twitch.  
  
Rich rolled his eyes. "Yeah right. When I went in there you were bent over the toilet-". But Hal never got to find out what Collin had been doing with the toilet.  
  
There was a loud explosion, with so much volume and force that it had to be close. The room seemed to shake; Hal felt a tremor under his feet. The dancing and music stopped, the lights flickered. There were shouts and screams, and the sound of glass shattering on the floor from a startled server.  
  
A few stunned seconds elapsed- everything was quiet, as if the entire room had been shocked into a hush

Then everyone around Hal seemed to start talking at once. But Hal didn't hear them. He immediately stood up and looked around the room. He didn't see anything that could've caused the blast. It must be someone outside. What jerks, playing a prank now, just as he was having a good time.  
  
He should go look, but... Hal had a thought. That _was_ a pretty intense explosion. He _should_ go figure out what was happening but- someone had to go with him, just in case. He looked around for Derek. The one redeeming thing about Derek was that he was built like a friggin tank. Hal had muscles, but not like Derek.

He found him a ways ahead, making his way through the crowd. The girls he had been with were nowhere to be seen. Derek also seemed determined to head to the door to find out what had happened. He was muttering angrily to himself. His path cleared fairly quickly, between people seeing a hulking body-builder stomping down towards them, and the people who were already crawling under tables anyway. Hal was about to go catch up with him, when suddenly there was another loud sound- a clang of metal on metal.  
  
The double metal doors in front of Derek suddenly blew off their hinges, sailing through the air in opposite directions. They crashed into empty tables at either side of the cavernous room, splintering wood. A man in a simple trench coat came hurtling through the air to slam into a bar stool right next to Hal, crunching it and sending pieces of wood flying. Dazed, the man tumbled off of the former bar stool and staggered to his feet. The man was of average height, had brown hair, short stubble, and looked completely exhausted. As Hal's eyes traveled down the man's body, he noticed that the front of his trench coat was red. It was blood. The man had been shot. Hal was about to say something when he noticed movement back at the door. He turned to look. There were three men in the doorway now, all in jet-black trench coats, and each wearing a black hat. They moved in tandem, each stepping into the bar at the exact same moment, with the same movement. And all three had machine guns raised.

Hal gaped. "Who are they? What the FREAK is going on? And who the HELL are you?" The man immediately jumped forward with surprising energy. Hal glanced around. All his roommates were there, except Derek, who was between the gunmen and Hal. Presently, he threw himself out of the way. The strange wounded man stepped in front of Hal, Rich, Collin and Mirvin at the bar, and raised his arms, palms open. He spoke to them over his shoulder.  
  
"I'm Dan. Now shut up and stay behind me."  
The three men in the doorway opened fire. Mirvin let loose with a girlish scream, but Hal could do nothing but stare. He was going to die and all he could think of was why the man in front of him was...  
Suddenly the man's hands began glowing a bright yellow color, and the gunfire immediately parted way around him, like a swarm of tiny black bees, running away from fire. The rounds slammed into the bar behind them, shattering bottles and sending frothy liquid everywhere.  
  
No one moved, they were too stunned. Except glowy-hands man. And the three gunmen. They were reloading.  
  
The stranger winced, putting his hand over his wound, and turned his head over a shoulder to look at them. Some thought seemed to flicker in his eyes, and he gave a little nod, as if making a split second decision.  
  
"You. All of you! Get in close behind me. Hurry." This time Hal burst into action in an instant. He grabbed Mirvin and slung him right behind the strange man. Rich and Collin followed suit.  
"Now don't move." He closed his eyes. Immediately something happened. Hal looked down in front of him. There was... something coming out of the stranger's feet. It looked like a blue substance, and it was spreading along underneath them quickly. When it had spread completely underneath them, it began crawling up around them, looking like translucent blue glass. It was quickly crystallizing, higher and higher, spreading upwards in an encircling sphere of blue. When it had gone over all of their heads, it spread inwards, closing them in a big blue bubble.  
  
Hal tried to think, tried to make some thought, any thought, come into his head, but he felt completely empty, completely blank. Maybe he had had too much to drink. Maybe he was passed out on the bar right now.  
  
He looked out of the bubble at the rest of the dance club. The gunmen were still reloading. But the scene was starting to look... distant somehow, as if he was watching the bar on TV, instead of being there himself. Except it looked like someone had put blue cellophane over the screen. He looked down again. The floor was receding from his feet. He was several meters off the ground now. But he wasn't falling. The feeling of distance increased, and suddenly his surroundings began to fade. At first everything just started looking indistinct, like the TV screen was losing focus. But then all the shapes lost their borders, they swirled and merged. Into blue. Soon all he could see was a landscape of featureless blue, all around him.  
  
While the room was fading from view, there was the general disbelieving statements from his roommates, none of them terribly helpful. He glanced down. Mirvin appeared to be on the "floor" rocking back and forth like a baby. Collin reached out a tentative hand to tap the stranger's shoulder.  
  
"What's going on?" He asked. "What are you doing, I don't get... wait look, it's Derek! We have to go back for him! Derek, we're right here! Come on!" The three gun-men were looking around confusedly now. They didn't appear to see Hal's group. They turned their heads to scan the room and their eyes fell on Derek, who was also looking in Hal's direction, not seeming to see anything. He didn't appear to hear their calling him either. The gunmen were putting their guns away now. Derek turned suddenly, hearing their approach. They jumped on him, and he struggled valiantly, but amazingly they seemed too strong, even for Derek's bulk. They began dragging him out of the bar. It was at that point that Hal's surroundings faded completely. Collin opened his mouth to try speaking to this weird freak- "Dan" but he was cut off before he could begin.  
  
"Busy" was all Dan said. Abruptly the man groaned, and fell to one knee. His face was contorted with pain, and Hal once again noticed the blood on his trench coat. It was dripping now, adding a touch of red to all the blue. As it collected, it fell into a puddle and spread along the 'floor' of the sphere.  
  
Collin's eyes drifted down to Dan's stomach. They widened. "Holy crap you've been shot, are you ok?"  
  
Dan didn't answer. Instead he closed his yes, his breathing coming out in ragged gasps. He winced again, and forced himself to stand up shakily, wobbling on his feet. All the while his face twisted from pain and concentration. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a raggedy deep breath, and then appeared to stabilize himself somewhat.  
  
Abruptly shapes starting appearing outside of their world again. It slowly faded in, and the bubble appeared to alight slowly on a hard wooden floor. Hal looked around through the blue-tinted bubble. There were shelves and shelves of books along the walls of this new room, the shelves going up for 20 feet at least. Each book was as thick as a dictionary, and looked older than mud.  
  
Then the bubble disappeared, and the red blood pooling on the floor immediately splattered on the ground. Dan gave out an explosive sigh, and suddenly collapsed, as if he had just let go of something really heavy. He fell over onto his side, chest heaving. His brown hair fell over his eyes, which now closed.  
  
"Get help...front door." He breathed, clutching his gaping stomach wound. Hal looked around. There were several people staring at them, many wearing cloaks, but some wearing normal looking clothes too. But he had said the front door. Ok.  
  
Without looking around at anyone, Hal immediately ran to two towering hard-wood doors, and pushed them open. He was now in a large room; there were many desks in it. They were arranged in a horseshoe shape, with one side of the curve directly to his left. Several men at the desks in front of him looked up sharply as he entered.  
  
Upon entering, Hal was struck at once by a strange feeling. He felt a flush in his face, as if there was an invisible open flame right in front of him. And at the same time he felt a chill, a creeping along his spine. And right after this, he felt a foreign feeling of intense nerves, like he had entered a hockey game with no practice beforehand. There were no apparent sources to any of these feelings, nothing Hal could observe in the room. The feelings leveled out after a moment, but the feeling that something wasn't right remained.  
  
In the far wall of the room, were a few windows, and in the wall to Hal's immediate left there were also a few. The problem was the windows were normal in every way except that the windows showed a scene of complete blackness. It wasn't that they were opaque, Hal was sure he could see out them. It was just that it almost looked like he was looking directly out into space, except there were no stars, no suns, and no planets. It was just expansive black. Hal decided to not look out the windows anymore.  
  
Movement in the far back left corner of the room caught Hal's eye. He tore himself away from the void windows and stared in awe at a contest ongoing in a big open space in the back. There were two teenagers, staring at each other, and several feet part on a raised platform. In front of the platform, was an old man wearing a brown cloak. The youths were laughing... and throwing balls of fire. They were ducking and rolling, and sometimes one would 'catch' a ball of fire from the other, and it would extinguish as soon as it hit their hand. Once in a while one would throw a fireball at the other, and the other would hold out a hand, which would glow yellow, and the fireball would veer off course and hit an empty desk in the middle of the room, causing it to immediately burst into flames. The old man with the cloak would calmly stretch out a hand and extinguish it. They were like kids playing with matches.  
  
Several yards directly in front of him was a desk several times larger than the others. It had multiple computer screens arrayed in front of one man with headphones around his neck who was sitting down. He was speaking with another man who was standing next to him. The standing man was dressed all in white, with a white cloak, white pants, and even an ornate white cane. He looked sharply at Hal as he walked into the room.  
  
The man sprinted towards them saying, "Who are you? Can I help you? I don't think..." He cursed in alarm when his eyes pushed passed Hal to his roommates and... Dan, who was back in the library room, was on the ground bleeding.  
  
Hal was instantly pulled back to reality, trying not to think about what he'd seen in this room. The guy who had most likely saved his life was hurt. He needed to help.  
"Your friend needs help." He said sheepishly, standing in the doorway with everyone staring at him.  
"Hey, Dan's injured over here, come take him to the Medical Wing!" The man in white shouted over his shoulder, as he ran past Hal to enter the room with the books. A few men in blue, red, and brown cloaks also rushed past Hal in a moment, as he stood there, trying to decide what to do. Hal hoped Dan would be ok.  
  
Hal turned and walked back into the library. Rich and Collin were gathered around Dan's fallen form. Mirvin was sitting on the ground a little ways a way by himself, muttering about something. Hal decided to ignore him for now.  
  
The man in white knelt beside his fallen comrade, real concern on his face. "Dan. Tell me what happened," he said.  
  
Dan smiled weakly. "Black Hats. Three of them. They ambushed me when I was on my way to the bar. I don't know how they found me. These four were an accident. I couldn't leave them back there. They had one more friend, but I couldn't save him, there was no time. The Black Hats..."  
  
The man in white smiled reassuringly. "Ok. I'll take care of it, don't worry. You'll be back to drinking yourself under a table in no time."  
  
Just then three or four of the men the man in white had called crowded around Dan, blocking out Hal's view. He thought he saw a flicker of light for a moment, coming from within the circle the cloaked men made around Dan, but then it was gone. They supported his weight, and then carried him back in the direction of the room with the desks.  
  
The two wooden doors closed behind the men carrying Dan, and then the man in white turned to face Hal and the other roommates. Immediately questions sprung out of mouths, in a torrent.  
  
"Black Hats? Who are they? Were they those guys who attacked us at Vertigo?" asked Rich.  
  
"What happened to Derek? Where did those guys take him? Will he be ok? How do we get him back? And what is this place? Who are you guys? Will your friend, this Dan guy, be ok? He WAS shot in the stomach you do realize" Hal said, sounding demanding.  
  
"Your friend made me lose Leonardo. He was my fried and he was l33t and it's your fault!" Mirvin added angrily.  
  
The man in white smiled patiently and waited. He arched an eyebrow and looked at Collin who had been staring at him openly. After a moment a satisfied expression appeared on Collin's face, as if he had just figured something out.  
  
"Well? Don't _you_ have a question for me?" The man in white said, tapping his white cane on the ground idly. Collin frowned, paused a moment, looked at the floor in thought and then looked back up and asked, "Are you an angel pimp?" Hal considered whether he should clobber Collin across the room. He decided it would have to wait for later.  
  
The man stood looking at Collin for a second, and then very obviously turned away from him to look back at Hal. He extended a hand.  
  
"Ok, first off, my name is Jeremiah. We might as well be acquainted before I address your questions."  
  
"Yo man. I'm Hal. Good to meet ya." Hal grabbed his hand and gave it a sturdy shake.  
"Hi. I'm Rich." Said Rich, shaking Jeremy's hand next, his expression level. Jeremy nodded, and then looked expectantly at the other two. Mirvin was sitting on the ground still, looking up accusingly at Jeremy, and Collin was looking at him suspiciously, as if he didn't accept his last answer.  
  
Hal rolled his eyes.  
"Ok the freak on the ground with the big head is Mirvin. And the freak with no brain is Collin."  
  
Jeremy nodded. He then turned to Hal. "I'm afraid I can't answer many of your questions. To tell you the truth, it would be much better for all of you if you just forgot about everything that happened tonight. And as far as Dan goes, don't worry about him. He will be fine."  
  
Rich narrowed his eyes. "What about our friend? We can't leave Derek behind."  
  
Jeremiah held up a hand in appeasement.  
"Your friend should return on his own. I will come by to check how you are all doing in a week's time. If your friend has not returned by then, we will deal with it."  
  
Hal shook his head.  
"No way man, no freaking way. You are going to take us right back to Vertigo right now, and we are going to get our friend back from those goons. Either that or I'll bash your hippy head in."  
  
Jeremy didn't even blink.  
"If you go back to this, Vertigo, now- you will most likely be shot immediately. This is because they saw you leave with one of ours. Please, you must trust me. Your friend is in no real danger. Most likely the Black Hats simply brought away your friend to ask him questions about Daniel. Since your friend knows nothing, there is nothing to worry about. It is not in our enemy's best interests to harm him. We have protected you this far, and you are unharmed. Please trust me just a little bit further. I assure you that I will help you reunite with your friend in due time, however that may need to be done."  
  
He turned and looked at Mirvin. He frowned for a moment, and then nodded to himself.  
"I will even compensate you for your computer, to prove that you can trust us." He turned and walked briskly back to the double wooden doors. He creaked one open and stuck his head in.  
  
Hal heard him shout, "Hey Michael, would you come here for a moment please?" After a few seconds, the man who had been sitting in front of the computer terminals earlier shot into their room, still on his rolling chair. He spun himself in a circle and then said "Yo Jeremiah, what is goin' on? Hey, wow man, stop spinnin' so much dude, I can barely keep up with you."  
  
Jeremiah smiled and waited patiently until Michael stopped spinning. Then he pointed to Mirvin and said "This gentleman lost his computer because of us. It was a laptop I believe, do you have a spare you could loan him perhaps?"  
  
Michael sprung up from his chair. He was wearing a bunch of electronic equipment that was beeping and buzzing and flashing. He had headphones wrapped around his neck, which appeared to connect into one of the contraptions on his hip. Michael frowned a moment, then reached into a backpack on his back for a moment. His face brightened and he pulled out a laptop the size of a place mat.  
  
"Sure, no problem. It's cool man. Here take this little dude. I bet it's way more rockin' than anything you've ever seen before anyway. Later!" He tossed the computer at Mirvin, which landed in his lap. He then hopped back onto his rolling chair and zoomed back into the office room.  
  
Mirvin's eyes grew wide as he powered up the machine, and was soon happily typing away.  
  
"Ok, let's get you folks home now. If you could just imagine your apartment for me, it would be most helpful. Don't ask me why, it's just an easy little trick I know."  
  
Hal frowned, but in the end decided to go along with this Jeremy punk. Truth was he was really tired, and a little drunk. He had had enough for one day. He closed his eyes pictured their college apartment, and in a moment he felt Jeremiah touch him lightly on the forehead. After about a minute he opened them again, and once more Hal and his roommates were in a blue bubble, surrounded by a field of solid blue. Hal looked down at Mirvin. He didn't even seem to notice. Hal felt like he should be terrified out of his mind at what had happened tonight, but for some reason he didn't care anymore. It was all part of the same hallucination, and he had already had this particular one once already.  
  
After they appeared back at the college apartment, they all said goodbye to Jeremiah. Hal told everyone that he was beat and was going to bed. As he settled into his covers, he decided that in the morning he would make himself certain that this had all been a bad drunken hallucination. He would share a good laugh about it even, with his good friend Derek.  
  
After a moment sleep took him, and he worried about nothing.


	3. Dough or Die

Hal sighed. He had had a long, strange first few weeks of school. He had thought that he had everything about last Friday night all figured out. It had been a dream But then his other roommates admitted that they remembered the "dream" he was telling them about.

Ok. Fair enough. So it was a shared dream. Something weird had happened, and somehow they all had the same dream. Maybe there was something in the drinks at the bar or something. Yeah. That made sense. At least- a whole lot more sense than what they had seen had actually happened.

And then Derek never came home. Ok- no big deal. He was practically failing out of college anyway. Maybe he met some girl at the bar. It made a whole lot more freakin sense than he got carried away by three shrimps in black.

Then Derek didn't show up for a week. Now, they had to tell someone. They told his mother that they had lost him at the bar, and didn't know where he was. She filed a missing persons report. A police officer had come to their dorm. They had all agreed what to tell him beforehand. Even Mirvin (with only minor bullying). Heck- Hal wasn't so sure it was a lie anyway.

Then there were the dreams. Every night, Hal had the same one. He was playing baseball by himself, against a team of shadows They had no distinct features, and they were just black, faceless, sometimes even changing shape. And every time he swung the bat and missed a ball thrown at him by some creep too scared-pissless to face him without hiding, he saw another image from Vertigo on Friday. Fshhht- a missed pitch: Dan flying through the air, Wshhhh-swing and a miss: Dan pushing aside gunfire with his hands, wooosh: another one right past him: Derek, being dragged off into the night.

The first night he had woken up in terror. But he quickly brushed it off as a booze-dream. And what the hell anyway?! Baseball! Ha, If they had played Hal's sport, the real _man's_ sport of hockey, he would've kicked those shadows' asses, all by himself.

After three nights of the same dream, Hal decided to mention it to someone casually. Unfortunately, when the thought occurred to him the only one around was Mirvin. He was clicking away in the bedroom he shared down the hall with Collin.

Hal walked towards Mirvin's room and paused outside his door. He sighed. He needed to know if it was just him. He walked in.

"Yo Mirvin, Hey man, I got a question for ya."

Mirvin continued clicking away. Without pausing, he said "Hello Hal. Mirvin is busy with elite computer programming work." He paused. "It is for masters only," He added, as if Hal wouldn't understand this important fact.

Once again, Hal bit back the desire to turn Mirvin into a human torpedo and fling him out a window.

"Look" He began, his voice harsh. But then he caught himself and continued, semi-calmly, through his teeth. "Yo man, I was just wondering, if well- if you've had any weird dreams lately. 'Cause, ugh, you uh, look tired man."

Mirvin paused, and turned around to look at Hal. He blinked.

"Mirvin has had strange dreams." He said this to Hal informatively, as if Hal hadn't just freaking asked him that. "Mirvin's computer hovers over Mirvin's head. Won't leave Mirvin alone. No. It is a bad computer. Makes Mirvin remember things that never happened."

Hal felt a surge of relief. It wasn't just him. It quickly fell away though. Maybe it was just a one time thing. And who is to say that Mirvin didn't always dream about that? He was an egg-headed freak, after all.

"Does uh, your computer always do that? While you sleep, I mean?" God, he sounded like an idiot.

Mirvin shook his head, giving Hal the feeling that the giant thing was going to fall off his neck and roll down the stairs.

"Oh no. No Raffy is good to Mirvin. Mirvin makes him work fast and efficiently." Mirvin turned to smile at "Raffy" as if it were a dear friend that Mirvin had just payed a compliment.

"Oh um- yeah ok. Thanks uh, Mirvin." Hal stepped out of the room then, grateful he didn't need anything else from the kid. Mirvin seemed like an Ok guy and all, but man was he a freak. Anyhow- It wasn't just Hal. Mirvin seemed to have very similar dreams.

As the week progressed, Hal asked Collin and Rich the same question, each separately. They too, had similar experiences. Strange dreams, the same ones every night, and always remembering Vertigo. That memory that had never happened. It couldn't have.

That wasn't the only thing either. Hal had come home after hockey practice one day, and Collin and Rich were arguing over the remote. Hal was about to say that they were both wrong, and they had to change the channel to ESPN, right now- when the TV had shut off. And it wouldn't turn back on. Mirvin, who had been sitting on the couch, immediately rose to the challenge, bragging about his smattering of engineering courses. But he was left confused. He said that everything should work.

He had unplugged the TV, and was fooling around with something in the back, when it had turned on again. Mirvin squeaked, and immediately jumped back from the set. They all stared. After a moment it turned off again. Then Mirvin tried to plug in the set again, his eyes closed and looking like at any moment the television would suddenly jump up and eat him. The television turned on and began working normally as if nothing had happened.. They had decided not to talk about that for a while.

And now, now Hal was standing right in front of the two men who didn't exist.

Dan and Jeremiah. The doorbell had rang, and he had been watching the Bruins game. His shouts for someone to get the door went unanswered. So, grumbling, he had gone himself. Strangely, his feeling of disbelief had immediately been drowned out by another feeling. It was Dan, and he was alive and well. "Dude, I am SOOO smashed right now." said Dan. He was just as Hal had remembered

Jeremiah gave Dan a disapproving glance. Then he turned back to Hal.

"Yes- well. Hello! You remember us right? I told you I would check up on you, so here I am. So how are things?"

"Yo man! You're ok! That rocks!" Hal reached forward and grabbed Dan's arm, slapping him on the back with his other. "Whoa. Shouldn't you be in the hospital or something? You were shot in the stomach, I saw it myself!" Dan grinned, then shrugged.

"It was a lucky shot." He said, simply. Then he mumbled "The paradox hurt a lot more."

Hal assumed that wasn't for him. He turned and yelled over his shoulder, "Yo everyone! Dan and Jeremy are here, come on down!"  
  
"Dude, didn't those guy empty like entire clips of machine guns at you?" Hal asked, in awe.

Dan shrugged. "At least there were no missiles this time." Hal gaped. He tried to think of something to say, but all that came out was- "You are a God."  
  
Dan shrugged. "Not really", he said. "Hey can I come in now, I'm finding standing up a little tricky." Dan wobbled on his feet, clearly very drunk.  
  
"Sure, Course, man! Come in, come in." Jeremiah walked in, almost looking like he was gliding in his longish white cloak. Dan staggered in, his cloak hanging open, and he collapsed on a couch.

"This couch kicks" he said, somewhat stupidly.  
  
"DAN!" Came a shout from the top of the stairs, and down came Collin, shaking Dan's hand at an awkward angle. "It's great that you're alright! How are you?"  
  
"Drunk" said Dan with a solemn nod.  
  
Next came Rich, who shook hands with Jeremy and Dan. He then grabbed a chair in the corner, and sat their observing for a while. Mirvin came next, after Hal threatened to go up there and get him. He also sat on the couch a bit out of the way.  
  
"So," said Jeremy, "Did your friend ever return?"  
  
Hal shook his head. "No, he never came back. What happened? Where did those punks take him?"   
  
Jeremiah shared a look with Dan on the couch. "That _is_ unfortunate." Jeremiah said.  
  
"Yeah, it totally sucks" Dan agreed.  
  
"Maybe he went to go pick up an Angel" Collin offered, winking at Jeremy. Hal rolled his eyes.  
  
"What does it mean? You hafta help us find him."  
  
Jeremy nodded. "Very well. But first off, I have to ask you something. Have you four been, well-"  
  
"You see anything really friggin' weird?" Dan said, finishing Jeremy's thought. Jeremy glared at Dan again. "Since Saturday" he said, choosing just to add to Dan's quip.   
  
"Well, well yeah actually." Hal said, feeling awkward. He hated admitting not knowing what was going on. "I've had some weird dreams- We all have. The same one every night. About what happened in Vertigo." They all told Jeremiah and Dan about their dreams. And then they told him about the TV, Mirvin saying something unhelpful about the TV's disposition towards him.

Jeremiah and Dan shared another look. Then Jeremiah sighed.  
  
"Ok." He said. "This is what is going on." He pointed to the window, where some college students were walking by. "You see all of them out there? Walking by your window? They, like you, have certain beliefs, a whole lot of beliefs actually, even many that they don't even know they have. They are like most people in the world, like 99 percent of everyone in the world. But it is their BELIEF that makes the world work the way it does. They don't realize this of course, they just assume it. But millions, hundreds of millions of people all have certain assumptions about what one can and can't do. Their collective will makes it so. Among these beliefs, are certain notions about fire. Fire must be started by an accelerant, and it must have fuel on which to burn." Jeremiah motioned to Dan, who staggered over to the curtains, and drew them.  
  
Jeremiah held out his hand, palm open, and a blue flame sprung into existence floating inches over his hand.  
  
"That's awesome!" Collin burst out.  
"How did you do that" Rich demanded, from the corner.   
  
Jeremiah smiled. "I decided, despite millions of minds telling me to the contrary, that in fact fire does NOT need an accelerant, or fuel. All it needs, is my will." He looked out on all of them.  
  
"You have all been asleep," he said. "Just like them outside the window, like most everyone else in the world. Your minds have bee adding to the collective assumptions about reality, and you decided without even knowing it, that you would accept these assumptions. "He paused. "But last week you saw something that couldn't happen. It wasn't a dream, and it happened, even though it couldn't. And now your mind is waking up. It is realizing that reality isn't so simple, so set as you thought it was. You are now seeing behind the curtain." He paused again, and looked at Dan for a moment. "We all go through this process. Everyone you saw in the Library- that is the entire building you were brought to last week, not just the section with the books- Everyone there had to go through this. The dreams you had were your minds, telling you that it is time to wake up, it is time to stop being passive observers of reality." Jeremy looked at Hal, his expression softening.

"There is a war going on. One of the conflicts is between people like us at the Library, who think that we should learn to shape reality, that we should control the environment in which we are set, and then there are those like the men you met at Vertigo, who think that we are doing something wrong, that we are violating nature, though millions of people shape reality every day without even realizing it. Their minds constantly reaffirm basic assumptions about physics, about your mind, about simple concepts like light, space, and weight."

"Those who think that we violate nature will do anything to stop us. They do not realize that they are already "violating" nature anyway. Those of us who oppose these people who would take out all mystery, all wonder from the world, are separated into factions called Houses. Myself and Dan, and everyone else at the Library, are part of a House that specializes in energy, and the forces that govern movement, heat, gravity, and many other things. We call ourselves the Order of Hermes." Jeremiah paused again, looking each of them in turn in the eyes.

"We would like you to join us. We can teach you to really see the world for what it is. We can teach you to do what is necessary to find your friend." He added, looking at Hal.

"How do we know this isn't a scam?" Said Rich, from across the room. "That you guys aren't con-artists?"

"Because we aren't forcing you to do anything. Nor do we require any currency from you. What we will teach you will be free. All we ask is that you abide by certain rules we have, such as not disclosing anything you learn with anyone else.

"I don't know" said Rich. "The whole thing sounds fishy to me."

Jeremy looked at him. "The choice is yours, of course. But let me tell you this- the dreams you had, the strange happenings, such as with your electric device; they won't stop. Once your mind has seen the world the way it is, it will never go back. It won't let you hide again. Once you wake up, you can't go back to sleep."

Rich remained silent, considering. Hal and Collin walked over and began discussing it. Eventually they decided to try it, that it couldn't hurt. They could at least maybe find out what was up with the TV. That was Collin that pointed out that one. He seemed to have an irrational interest in the TV. Mirvin took a little long while longer to ... convince. Actually, he ran upstairs, saying that everyone could all go without him. Jeremy and Dan just looked at each other and laughed knowingly. After a few moments Mirvin screamed something that sounded like "No Raffy, No!".  
  
Rich, with a confused expression, immediately looked at Jeremiah, who just smiled. "Now, when I say mind it's probably a tad bit confusing. If you think about a human being made up of mind, body and soul, it is actually the soul that wakes us up."  
Everyone stared blankly, and a few more banging and squealing noises came from upstairs.

"Right.. You have this other spirit inside of you, called an Avatar, who has been pushing you this past week to find out what exactly happened that night. We don't know exactly how these spirits become attached, or why, but we do know that they are the driving force behind our will to change reality. The strange things you've been seeing in your dreams, The shadows, Mirvin's computer, the owl in your dream Collin or the reflection of yourself in yours Rich, they're all representations of the guardian spirit waking up."

Jeremiah looked at each of them in turn once more. Then he sighed, as if he was resigned to a certain decision he regretted on some level.

"There is just one more thing I must tell you before you make your choice. And that is concerning the phenomenon known as paradox. It is possible, with many long hours of practice, by learning the correct methods, and by concentrating enough, to change reality in nearly anyway you can think of. But like I said, the collective will of humans in the world makes reality the way it is. So each time you change something, you push against that will. Paradox is the will of reality pushing back. Any time you change the world to overtly, especially in front of "sleeping" witnesses, that Pattern of reality may snap back onto your mind and cause you damage. Dan had a particular nasty bout of paradox shortly after we healed him of his wounds. Otherwise he would have been up and running much quicker than he did." Jeremy paused.

"This is why it is best to try changing reality in subtle ways, ways that can be easily explained as something else- especially when you are in front of Unawakened witnesses; that is those who do not except the malleable nature of the universe. But we will teach you more about how to deal with that later. Additionally, the Library is in an area that is more immune to paradox."  
  
Right at the conclusion of Jeremy's speech, Mirvin practically fell back down the stairs. He hurriedly said that they better hurry up and get to expanding their minds, giving a worried glance behind his back, up the stairs.

After that, Jeremiah did something strange to Hal's bedroom window, and said that they should all go through it in about an hour. He then said he had some business to take care of, and him and Dan left.

During the hour, everyone talked about what they had heard. They decided that it couldn't hurt just checking out what was going on.

Hal was the last to push himself through the window, grunting. It was odd being the biggest guy now. Usually it was Derek that brought up the rear and could never fit through doors or low ceilings. Hal chuckled to himself. But now, he... No. No point in thinking about it. Derek would show up eventually. He probably just took a bit longer than normal fighting off those freaks in the hats back at Vertigo. Ha! The big wimp. Hal would've busted all three of those punks in no time. They even put away their guns. There's no way Derek could lose to those guys in that situation. They were like twigs. Coat racks with arms and legs. Pah! What did Hal care anyway? He was glad that big loser was gone. All he ever did was brag about how great he was anyway, and...

"Hi everybody! I trust the window works well enough for you?"  
  
Hal was jerked from his thoughts by the voice in front of him. He managed to push through Collin and Mirvin, to stand by Rich in the front. The voice belonged to Jeremiah.  
  
"Yo, Jeremiah- I feel like a big loser crawling through my freakin bedroom window to get here. Come on man, there has to be another way that's less... dumb."   
  
Jeremiah laughed. "I'm afraid that's the only way we can do it, Hal. Without making something real conspicuous in your front door anyway." He stopped for a moment, and frowned.   
  
"Speaking of which, I don't recommend having guests over too often. You have to be careful now. There will be many things in your lives now that will be difficult to explain to others. Please be cautious, all of you." He surveyed the group after finishing. Then his grave expression fell away, and he brightened.  
  
"Well then, enough of that. Come with me everyone, I'll introduce you to your teachers. Most of them are free now I believe, but only for a few minutes. You will have to schedule lessons with them for a later time. I recommend-"Jeremiah continued saying stuff, but Hal was distracted by something in the back of the big room they were in. It was the office area he had seen before. The floor he was currently standing on was carpeted, but it gave away to polished hardwood floor on the far left corner of the room. There was an open area there. It's where he had seen two kids playing with fire before. It appeared to be some kind of sparring area, for there were two people facing off on it now. Around them was a small crowd, with a dozen, maybe more looking on. He could see the combatants from here, because there was a fairly large raised area, on which mats had been placed.   
  
Unconsciously Hal began moving forward, as he tried to see what was going on. He heard a voice behind him, and was about to ask what they wanted, but was distracted again by movement back on the raised stage.  
  
On the left of the mats was a man who appeared to be in his early twenties. He had a slight, thin build, and dirty blonde hair that he was constantly shaking out of his eyes. In his hands was a sheathed sword. It appeared to be tightly bound with ribbon. Obviously not meant to be opened, not in this match anyway. Hal could see the sword in his hands clearly now, it was moving in a dizzying pattern in the area. It rested in a defensive position, and the man left it there, waiting. Hal couldn't quite make out his expression yet. He drew closer.  
  
Facing him, several feet away, was a girl who appeared to be in her late teens. She had brown hair tied bag in two tails, a single white ribbon in each. She wore a wide white sash, with many pouches hanging off her hips. Presently, she crossed her arms over her chest and gave a derisive, unimpressed puff of air at the sword play in front of her.  
  
Hal was on top of the crowd now, and he pushed through to the front. There was a white line on the hardwood floor several feet away from the stage, and everyone was behind it. Hal shrugged and stopped there.   
  
Standing in front of him, directly in front of the stage, was an old man in a brown cloak. He cleared his throat and then turned to address the small crowd in front of him. After a moment, he spoke, in a strong, if a bit cracked, voice.  
  
"Please stay behind the lines everyone, or I can't ensure your safety. Today it is James Versus Kristyna. This match will determine who goes to the level 5 tournament later on this month, to represent the Library."  
  
There was a general rustling from the crowd, and a few shouts for: "yeah James!" and "It's all you Kris!" and even a "Go Kristy, kick his ugly ass!" The last comment came from a group of two girls to Joe's left. Obviously the one who had shouted was the one with long blonde hair like spun gold that hung loose over the back of her white dress. She had several rings on her fingers and even a complex black amulet around her neck. The girl beside her was mostly silent, but she was glaring out at James, as if she were trying to burn a hole right through his face. She simple darker shaded clothing, with baggy pants and a somewhat expansive coat. The coat hung a little open in the front, and Hal could see a wicked looking short sword with an ornate handle that held a single, large glass jewel in the middle.  
  
Hal shivered, hoping no one saw him. What was wrong with him? Afraid of a girl? His hockey pals back at school would never let him hear the end of it if they ever found out. But there was something creepy about her. Though he couldn't put his finger on what.  
  
Hal turned his attention back to the scene in front of him. The girl had uncrossed her arms now, and was giggling. "Nice display their James, but I can tell by your expression that you aren't ready for this. You're afraid to hurt me aren't you? That's real sweet and all, but unless you go all out, you'll never beat me. I've gotten a lot better." She grinned, enjoying herself, and then jammed her hands into the pouches on either side of her hips. There were three big ones, two on her left hip, and one on her right hip. She also had a few pouches in the back, but she seemed less conscious of these.  
  
James smiled, without saying anything, but Hal thought he looked nervous.  
  
The old man held up his hand then, and held it raised. James and Kristyna tensed. What was the big problem anyway? That James kid looked tough, he had to admit. And that chick was just an uppity priss. This really shouldn't take long. Though Hal also had to admit, that he wouldn't want to fight a girl either.  
  
The arm fell, and Kristyna immediately pulled her left hand out of the pouch on her hip. It appeared to be a fine, sparkling powder of some sort interspersed with pink rose petals.  
  
At the same time, James took a step back, close to the end of the sparring platform. He bent low, his sword held defensively in front of him. He appeared to wait to see what Kristyna would do.  
  
Kristyna paused, with the powder in her hand, and looked up at James. "I've developed quite a lot since the last time we did this. I have a few new tricks I'd like to show you. Hope you like it."  
  
James smiled again, tolerantly, and tensed.  
  
"Waiting to see what I do then? What a gentleman you are."  
  
She giggled, and then held her hand out before her lips, and blew hard. The petals and powder fluttered out of her hand everywhere, bouncing in the air, but then something strange seemed to happen to them. She blew again, harder, even though the petals were well out of the range of her breath now. Nonetheless, the petals spread out, and flew forward, as if a great gust had caught them perfectly.  
  
James laughed, sounding almost relieved "I don't know what that is, but it can't be good. You'll forgive me if I don't stick around." He danced to the left, and circled towards Kristyna.  
  
Kristyna laughed again, thoroughly enjoying herself. It sounded like tinkling bells. She held out her arms out in front of her, palms open and facing up. She raised them slowly, and the petals slowed dramatically on their swaying path towards the ground. In fact they seemed to nearly freeze in the air.  
  
She winked at James, and then turned her palms over again, facing to the left. She moved them in James' direction, and the petals suddenly whirled in the air again, heading towards him. She gestured toward herself with her left hand, and the petals spread out again, until they covered his entire corner. They started gusting in his direction, now that he was cornered. They weren't just at one height either, so James couldn't go under. He appeared to have to jump over at this point, although they were almost head level and...  
  
James raised his sword, made a circular swinging motion in the air, stepped forward and... disappeared.  
  
Hal gaped. He looked wildly around the room and spotted James on the other side of the platform. What? How had he moved that fast? It was completely impossible! Hal didn't even see him MOVE. And Hal's eyes could pick up a puck moving at bullet speed.  
  
Kristyna whirled, swinging her arms in James direction. The cloud immediately gusted past her, towards James, picking up speed this time.  
  
This girl was good. Look at the control she had, balancing petals on the wind!  
  
James frowned, as the cloud spread out wide in a seemingly random fluttering of red and white. Each petal seemed to be blowing and fluttering wildly, but it would always fly back into line. It was wider now, and moving towards James fast.  
  
He seemed to sigh to himself, and then cut at the air again, stepped forward, and disappeared. This time he appeared directly in front of Kristyna, less than 3 feet from her. Hal rubbed his eyes, scarcely believing this was happening.  
  
The guy set himself and then sprung forward, swinging his sword at Kristyna's head. It was a clumsy swing though. And Kristyna easily ducked under it, and then leaped backwards, her hand going to another pouch on her hip. What was she going to pull out this time? Barbie dolls?  
  
James immediately recovered and leapt forward, again swinging clumsily, almost gingerly for Kristyna's middle. Kristyna dove out of the way once more letting out a squeaky "Eep!" as she did. After she rolled back to her knees she quickly let something out that looked suspiciously like pizza dough.  
  
Hal couldn't take any more of this. He had seen what James could do with a sword. He got angry and forgot himself.  
  
'Dude what are you doing man? Kick her ass! Stop pussying around! What is she gonna do, hit you with a pizza?" He shouted, drawing a few sharp glares from the girls to his left. Hal didn't care though.  
  
James swiveled instantly and jumped up in the air, flying up way more than should have been possible. When he hit his apex he swung down hard towards Kristyna. Instantly Kristyna grabbed the top half of the dough, and pulled it up with her as she stood up and back. With the dough in her right hand, stretching from over her head to the ground, she made a hasty hand gesture with her left hand, and then balled it hard into a fist. The dough was stretched between her and James now, making a sort of tent-like covering over head.  
  
It looked really silly. What the heck was she doing? Hal was about to shout something mocking at her, when the dough changed. It seemed to become more compact, more solid and the color faded from gray/white to a bluish grey. And then it was hard, REALLY hard. The overhead light glinted off it.  
  
James was on top of it now and he swung his sword down hard... and it smacked into the substance and bounced. James stumbled as he fell into the metal, his chest crashing into the curved metal ledge. Obviously he had been aiming to cut through the dough Was that stuff _steel_? What? Who WERE these people? How did she DO that? James seemed as surprised as Hal. He was now hanging by one arm from what looked like a giant half melted chunk of metal, at least 6 feet off the ground, that rose up out of the ground like a hunk of melted wax, and curved in a half arc. James slipped and clung desperately to the metal structure. His face looked partially in pain. He had expected to land on his feet, cutting through dough, not on his stomach, landing on steel. He pulled himself up to stand on top of the metal, precariously.  
  
Kristyna was also getting to her feet, now several feet away, having leapt from under the structure shortly after James struck it. She stood up now, and turned to look at James. Her left fist was still clenched.  
  
James bent his knees, and prepared to leap off the metal, directly at the girl below him. He tensed. Kristyna looked at him in alarm, and instantly opened her hand. And just like that there was no longer anything supporting James' weight. He fell on the ground, landing on his ass painfully, wet chunks of grayish white dough landing on his head and face.  
  
He stood up uneasily, rubbing his backside, and then picked pieces of dough off his face and out of his hair.  
  
He looked up.   
  
Kristyna was doubled over, laughing hysterically.  
  
"Wow. Just WOW. That was totally classic James. What was that? Why did you jump way in the air like that? It just gave me more time to set up."   
  
She stopped laughing, and narrowed her eyes.  
  
"You were trying to scare me weren't you? Get me to give up without a fight. Damnit James. When will you take me seriously? I'm telling you, I've grown. I'm not a little girl anymore. And this match isn't just for kicks. We are going up against some serious shit in the near future. If we don't get better fast, we will die."

She set herself, and jammed a hand into her pocket.  
  
"You WILL take me seriously. For your own good. You can't be soft when it counts. And what if a situation like this occurred in battle? If you don't go all out on this next one, you could get hurt."  
  
James finished dusting himself off, and started trying to plead with her.   
  
"Kristyna, this is just a sparring match, please. Look, fine ok. I give up. Ok? You can go to the tournament. I just don't want to see you hurt..."  
  
Kristyna's expression grew furious.  
  
"Oh No you don't. No way. I won't let you. I am NOT a little girl who needs your protection. If you don't do something serious with this next one, they will have to dust you off the floor with a brush."  
  
Hal leaned forward, wanting what she could possibly pull out of the third and final big pouch on her belt. And maybe now this James guy what get serious and he could see what he could really do. How had James jumped that high? Or moved that fast? Hal wanted to, NEEDED to learn, now. Imagine what he could do if he could move that fast! No one would score a goal on him, EVER.  
  
At the exact moment that Kristyna appeared to be ready to make a move, Hal felt an arm on his shoulder. It pulled him, hard, back out of the crowd.  
  
"Don't wander off like that" he said, frowning. "You could get into trouble I can't protect you from. Plus it's not a good idea for you to watch that yet. You need to learn to crawl before you can fly. And besides, if I'm not too much mistaken, Kristyna is about to do something fairly reckless. And I cannot let you get hurt quite yet. Now come with me."  
  
He dragged Hal back towards the front of the room, where the desks were. Hal started resisting, trying to tug free.  
  
"Dude what are you doing? I gotta finish watching that, it was amazing! I-"

He would've struggled more, but he was quickly surrounded by Rich, Collin and Mirvin. "Where did you go to?" asked Rich, his black jacket still on, the telltale bump for his hockey stick still there. It took concentration for Hal not to laugh. A stick? With what he had just seen two teenagers do, even if Rich's stick had been a bazooka it would little difference in this place.  
  
Jeremiah had let go of him now, and Hal realized that he was obediently walking with everyone else behind Jeremy. His gut reaction was to screw this, and go back to the fight that he was missing the end of, right this moment. But then another thought came to him. If he wanted to learn to do what he had just seen, he had to play along for now.  
  
Chances are that this was all a colossal joke, and Hal was being laughed at by punks watching him through cameras right now. Either that or he was still passed out on the bar at Vertigo, and this was all a complex drunk-dream. But whatever, for now he'd just pretend it was real.

He turned to answer Rich, as they walked behind Jeremy.  
"I was watching the match over in the corner. You should've come over to watch it man, it was In-freakin-credible. This one guy, he's so fast that not even I can follow him moving from once place to another at all."

Rich eye's widened a bit. He seemed impressed by this, but didn't address the comment directly.

"Well we were going to follow you right away, but Jeremiah was called away to do something, and he got that Michael guy to watch us while he was away. I don't think he wanted us watching that match. We could only make out a little from where we were, because that weird guy with all the electronic crap kept spinning around us on that chair with the wheels."

Rich paused a moment, frowning. "It's a bit unfair that you go to see the fight, and we didn't."

Hal resisted the temptation to turn around and try to get a glimpse of what was happening in the match. He didn't hear any cheering, or loud noises, so he assumed nothing yet. The group was weaving in and out of desks now, with Jeremiah several feet in front of them. Mirvin and Collin were in between them and Jeremiah and Collin appeared to be laughing and poking Mirvin in the ribs while he complained loudly.

Rich glanced at Jeremiah, noting his position, before he turned back to Hal as they walked. His expression lightened a little, looking mischievous and conspiratorial.

"But anyway, so- what happened? We saw some big weird structure in the middle of the floor up there for a second, but then it disappeared? What was that? And was the guy with the sword any good?" He asked, an edge of excitement pushing into his voice. Hal was about to answer, when he realized that Jeremiah had stopped in front of a door and was patiently waiting for them.

"Come on", he said "We have only a few minutes now, and Wizard wanted to meet you."

They followed Jeremiah up a flight of stairs, down a hall, and into a spacious room with various strange looking things on the shelves, and a big desk in the middle. Sitting at the desk, working was an old man with stark white hair and a full white beard that stuck out from his face. He wore a simple black cloak, with a silver clasp that seemed shaped into some kind of figure Hal couldn't make out.

He stood up as they entered.

"Welcome," he said, smiling broadly and warmly.

"Hi Wizard," said Jeremiah, with respect. "These are the new students I told you about. I figured I should take them to meet you real quick before you had to go out again."

Wizard nodded. He stepped forward to shake everyone's hand. As Hal shook his hand, and introduced himself, he got a better look at the clasp around Wizard's neck. It was an angel, a male one. It had large silver wings, and two hands holding a sword formed the clasp in the middle.

After he finished, Wizard stepped back to look at them. Strangely he looked... guilty. It was a foreign expression on a man who exuded so much... patience, and power. Hal wasn't sure how he knew, but he got the feeling that this guy was really powerful, and important. Even beyond the obvious.

"I regret that I personally will only be able to teach one of you. I have a bit of nasty business to take care of this week. I believe you do as well, Jeremiah?"

Jeremiah nodded. "I think Dan is free though, or more than normal this week."

Hal had so many questions, so much he wanted- NEEDED to know. It burst out of him, without even thinking.

"Yo- Wizard, Hey man- I saw some weird stuff at the match down stairs. And I was wondering how they do that? Turning stuff into steel, moving so fast I can't even follow where they go in between, jumping ten feet into the air and-" He stopped. And looked at Wizard, with steely eyes. "I want to learn how to do that." Wizard laughed lightly and said, "Whoa, hold on there. I compliment on your eagerness young man, but I'm too old to answer so many questions at once! I will answer one or two of them now though. You will have to come back to me later to learn the rest."

"If I'm not much mistaken, this 'speed' you speak of, isn't speed at all. " Wizard paused, apparently thinking how to phrase his next sentence.

"There are nine ways to change reality. These nine ways we refer to as 'spheres'. No doubt what you observed today falls under the sphere known as 'Correspondence'. This deals with spatial relationships. This means that the man you observed was it James?"

Jeremiah nodded.   
"Yes, right. Well this means that, most likely, James moved directly from one space to another. It's not that he was too fast for you to see, he didn't move through the space in between at all."  
Hal gasped. He couldn't wait to learn something like that. He didn't care if this was all a dream. Damnit he would enjoy it if it was. Wizard stopped a moment, and looked back at Jeremiah. "Is James sparring with Kristyna?"  
Nod from Jeremy.  
"And she has used two of her pouches?"  
Another nod. Wizard's eyebrows lifted, and his eyes widened.  
"You four are missing quite a show then."  
Hal and the others looked at each other, then they looked back at Wizard, hopefully.  
Wizard laughed again. "Go, Go on then! Come back at the same time tomorrow. Hal you can come up here. The rest of you will have to find Dan. Careful not to stand to close to Kristyna" Wizard said, having to raise his voice a little as Hal, Rich, Collin, and Mirvin flew out the door and back down the stairs, in that order. Mirvin quickly fell somewhat behind, complaining and asking what was going on. But Hal barely heard him anymore; he flew down the stairs, skipping three at a time.

When he was about halfway down there was a loud BANG, and a few seconds later- BANG BANG BANG! Then he heard a loud cheer go up from the crowd. It must be deafening up close since he could hear it from way back here. The three of them flew out the door and across the offices, dodging desks and men with papers.

Hal didn't care what that girl could do, there was no way she could ever, possibly beat-

When they got there, there was a crowd of girls waving their arms and cheering at the top of their lungs. The guys in the crowd were milling about and slowly walking away, shaking their heads. The group of three (Mirvin was way behind now) stopped in front of the crowd.

No way. There was no possible-

They pushed through the crowd, and there, up on the platform, was perhaps the saddest scene Hal ever laid eyes on.

There, on the ground, was James. He was unconscious. Sitting on his chest was Kristyna. She was humming to herself, and appeared to be... braiding... flowers?!? Into his hair? Hal stared, mortified.

In between humming, Hal could hear her softly talking to the unconscious James.

"I'm sorry for getting mad at you earlier. But you really should've tried harder. I told you I was better. And you wouldn't have hurt me. See? I'm just trying to protect you, in my own way. You never know when some Technocratic chick is gonna come after you, ready to tear off your nuts with an electric chain saw. If you're too soft to fight her, you'll be done for." She giggled again, and took another petal off the ground, braiding it into James' hair, humming to herself.

Hal looked around the arena. There was a glitter-like substance over almost the entire arena. It was swirling now, moving into Kristyna's pouch, along with flower petals. Over some parts of the arena, there was also a small quantity of water.

Water?!? Hal thought. Those explosions he heard were caused by water? How? And how had Jeremy been put out? It must have something to do with that glittery powder. Did it have sleeping-agent properties? Hal decided not to find out by getting any closer. He tried asking some of the guys about what had happened, but no one appeared to want to talk about it.

Dangit. Hal had a thought then- Maybe he could ask Wizard about it later, he seemed to have an idea of what was going on. Hal suddenly felt excited. He thought back to all the things he had seen James do. He was going to learn that. All of it. He couldn't wait.

Rich suddenly appeared over one shoulder. He motioned to the group of girls all cheering now, and talking excitedly with Kristyna. He pointed to one in particular, the one with the glaring eyes, dressed in a black shirt with a baggy pants and jacket.

He muttered into Hal's ear, "She has throwing knives on her. Lots of them." Hal looked back at the girl, he couldn't see a thing. Man Rich had sharp eyes. Hal decided he would learn from James' mistakes today. Don't take crazy chicks lightly.

He returned through the Library window to his bedroom window, and did a little homework. Tomorrow he would learn how to kick some ass. And, he would make that Jeremy punk keep his promise. Tomorrow they would find Derek.


	4. Node Crybabies Allowed part 1

Hal grunted and strained, feeling like at any moment, that would be it. His freakin' arms would just fall off. It was inevitable. It wasn't like Hal hadn't done a pull up before. Heck, he did them all the time for Hockey training.

But he didn't have around 200 pounds in weights tied to his feet then. It was totally retarded. No one could do this. He'd like to see that bony–ass, weak old man try and do even one of-

"Just five more Hal, you can do it, concentrate. Here I will give you one, for free." The white-bearded man known only as "Wizard" walked underneath Hal, who was hanging and sweating from the iron bar suspended six feet in the air in the study. The old man calmly put one thin, arthritic hand under Hal's feet, and lifted Hal from arms-length underneath the bar, until he was a full two feet over the bar, holding it with white knuckles below him.

Hal would've yelled at Wizard in outrage, but he was too tired.

"How are you so strong? It's not fair" Hal said weakly, as Wizard slowly let go of him, and Hal felt the crushing weight of his body and the weights tied to his legs once again. The amulet tied to his hand glowed, and he knew that if he lost his concentration for even a moment, the weight would probably dislocate his arms and legs.

No. No, Wizard wouldn't let that happen.

Wizard walked around in front of Hal, a look of kind concern on his face.

"I'm not, Hal. And you know that. Make yourself lighter. Let the amulet do the work. This is not about your body, it is about your mind. Relax, don't try to force it. Just believe it, _know_ you are lighter, through the amulet, and it will be so. Only when you force gravity to loosen its grip on you will you be able to do this".

Hal's body felt like it was pulling apart; the bones in his legs were being slowly pulled away from their tendons, his muscles screamed for relief. Hal desperately tried to force his body up, up over the bar, but they wouldn't move. He wanted to curse, to scream, to yell at Wizard for doing this to him, but then, then he knew there was only one thing left to do. He would not be hurt, because he weighed no more than 100 pounds. Even babies could lift that much.

Forcing himself not to think about it, he loosened his grip on the bar, he let himself feel the force of gravity on his body, through the amulet. And then, he let himself relax. He was lighter. The amulet made him so. He felt a surge of heat, of energy from the amulet on his wrist, and suddenly his muscles relaxed. He still felt the weight on his feet, but it was ten pounds at the most. Resisting the temptation to giggle like a stupid school-girl. He pumped off four more chin-ups, and then let himself drop. His eyes closed, and he felt his body relax almost against his will as he fell to the earth. He was exhausted. When he opened his eyes a moment later, Wizard was in front of him, a hand raised. Hal was floating in the air, and the weights on his feet were gone.

Wizard was grinning broadly, as he lowered Hal gently to the mat underneath him.

"That was very good Hal! I am astounded with how quickly you are learning."

"Thanks Wiz, man. Hey I got a question for ya though. If I had failed, and lost it, you know. I mean- couldn't I have been...?"

Wizard shook his head.

"No Hal. I was watching you very carefully the entire time. I would not have let anything happen. In fact, I came very close to stopping the whole thing. You should not have insisted on so much weight."

Hal snorted.

"Not goin all out is for wimps" he said somewhat raggedly, his chest heaving, his eyes closed as he lay on the floor." After a moment he sat up, looking at the amulet tied to his wrist. Strange how such a girly thing could have so much power. It had a gold base and a pair of silver angel-wings fused onto the base, with an emerald directly between each wing. After a few minutes he sat up, and looked at wizard, who was sitting at his desk nearby, looking at Hal with concern.

"Don't worry Wiz, I'm cool." Actually Hal's every muscle felt like it was going to rip off his body; they all burned. Hal was starting to feel really tight, and unsure he could walk too far like this. "Anyway- I was just wonderin why I even have to learn this way anyhow? Can't I just try to guess the exact weight of stones and things, like I did last week? Or, I dunno move heavy stuff with my hand, or something"

Wizard shook his head. "You won't ever master being able to effect gravitational fields unless you can do it in extreme circumstances. You told me that you wanted the quickest, most effective way to learn to "kick ass" as you put it, and this is it. If you learn to control your effect under these circumstances, then nothing will distract you. Not even combat, if that is your wish. And more than that, you will learn it thoroughly, so that you may do it consistently. What you accomplished today was VERY impressive. But you will not be able to do that consistently for a while yet."

"Thanks Wiz. Yeah I'm pretty pumped about it. It was like the weight wasn't there. It rocked. This amulet you gave me is great. But..."

Wizard smiled. "You wish to know how you can get a 'better one' don't you? Well, when you are ready, I have a test for you, that I think you may be able to do now. Sooner than I thought, I might add. You may only take this test once per day, but as many days as you require. When you complete it, I will give you a more potent amulet.

Wizard paused again, his blue eyes twinkling.

"And", he began, casually, "If you complete the test, you will be allowed to compete in a House-Wide Competition, where you can win items and various other resources many times more powerful than what you currently hold. Additionally, you will be allowed to go on more difficult missions."

Hal's mouth dropped. "Really? Rock on! You mean like...?" Wizard nodded.

If Hal could raise his fist enough to pump it, he would have. He could bust his buddy Derek out of wherever those cowardly punks with frilly black hats were keeping him. Tommorrow, it would be three weeks since the incident at Vertigo. A week after the incident, Hal had demanded to know where Derek was, what those jack-asses in black had taken him. Jeremiah had avoided answering him for a while, but eventually he told him that most likely Derek was being held to try and find out information about The Library-the place where Hal was training.

The freaky nerds in black hats were part of something called the Technocratic Union, that was trying to get rid of people like Hal, who could change the way the world worked and make it kick more ass. Hal could hardly wait to jump in there and send their bony little punk-asses flying through windows. He clutched his amulet and smiled. He couldn't wait.

"Yo, Wiz. Let me take this test of yours now. I'm ready. Let's do it."

Wizard shook his head. "Not today, Hal. You need to rest your body. Remember, you can't beat these things into the ground. This is done by your mind, not your body. However, it still requires your body to be in top shape because of the way you are training right now. I will let you attempt the test tomorrow. Good work today, Hal. Really. I am most impressed with your progress. Ok, I have work to do now. And you should get to the hospital wing."

Hal was about to protest, but then he realized that he really was pretty hurt. And those guys could do pretty awesome stuff down there. Hal began to try and get up, but Wizard laughed, and shook his head again.

"Hal, you never stop, do you? I almost feel sorry for people who stand in your way." He paused, and stopped chuckling after a moment.

"I don't think you are able to move to the Hospital Wing in your current condition. I will give you a hand. I will see you tomorrow, Hal. Think about what I said to you today." And with that, Wizard snapped his fingers, and Hal was suddenly in a bed in the hospital wing.

It just so happened that Hal, Rich, and Collin all got back to the apartment early that day, and none of them had much homework. It was good for a change. The last few weeks had been insanely busy for Hal. Between school work, hockey practice, and training at the Library, Hal barely had time to sleep. As a result, he hadn't seen his roommates too often. It was good to finally get a chance to catch up with them, and find out what they've been learning.

"Yo, Rich!" Hal said, as he emerged at the top of the stairs, after crawling through his stupid bedroom window again. "Collin! Yo, what's up guys?"

Rich and Collin were sitting on the couch, appearing to argue over the remote again.

Rich and Collin turned and brightened as Hal descended the stairs. Rich got up and came over to meet him. Concern colored his face as he saw Hal limping a little. The guys in the hospital wing had done an amazing job, but Hal was still felt really tired, and his tendons were still a little sore. He was glad he didn't have hockey practice 'til next Monday.

"Hal, are you alright?" Rich asked, offering him an arm as Hal reached the landing.

Hal waved him off.

"No, it's cool man. The guys at the hospital wing fixed me up real good. They just said it'd be better if I let this heal more naturally."

"Rough day?" asked Rich.

Hal told him about his ordeal on the chin-up bar. But added that it was totally worth it, and how impressed Wizard was.

Rich eyes got a little bigger as he listened to Hal's story.

"Wow, that's cool. Gravity huh? Awesome, you can really push people around now, eh?"

Hal clenched his fist. "Totally dude." Hal looked around. "Where's Mirvin at anyway?"

Rich shrugged. "He went to train with that Michael guy I think. I haven't really seen him at all."

Hal nodded. "Oh ok. So where have you guys been training anyway? And what did you learn?"

"Me and Collin have been with Dan." Rich winked at Hal.

"Watch this," he said, turning to look at Collin. Collin appeared to have forgotten about Hal completely. He had a bit of a short attention span. He was watching something on the TV now, looking totally absorbed. The TV remote hung loosely in his right hand.

"CELERIOREM ME FAC!" Rich shouted, instantly jumping forward. The world seemed to distort around him, and he moved inhumanly fast, whizzing around the corner of the couch, grabbing the remote out of Collin's hand, and hopping onto a beanbag chair beside the couch. Then he changed the TV channel.

The effect ended, and Rich sat leisurely on the beanbag chair, watching a kung-fu movie.

Collin didn't move an inch during the whole encounter. It didn't look like he noticed. Hal couldn't blame him too much though. Rich had been little more than a blur. Collin brought his thumb and forefinger together now though, trying to use a remote that wasn't there anymore. He looked confusedly around the room, finally spotting Rich, who was on the bean bag chair now.

"Hey! Come on! No magic outside of the Library, that's what Dan said!" Collin frowned, as his eyes spotted the remote in his hand. He didn't appear to have noticed it before.

"Hey! I was using that! It's not fair for-'. At that exact moment, the TV turned off. Smoke billowed out of the top of it.

"Oh no. NO. Just NO." Collin said, horror in his eyes.

He stood up.

"Not AGAIN. YOU, TV!" Collin said, addressing the TV. "You WILL obey me. You WILL work. MARK MY WORDS WELL, FIENDISH CONTRAPTION OF METAL AND GLASS!"

Collin approached the TV at this point, saying various strange things to try and coax the TV to work again. At one point Hal could've sworn he observed Collin kneel beside the TV, give a quick glance around to see if anyone was in earshot (Hal was, unfortunately), and then whisper into the TV speaker-

"Ok, Ok I'm sorry. Just tell me where it hurts ok?"

Hal decided to not even think about that anymore. While Collin was... "fixing" the TV, Hal walked over to where Rich was sitting on the couch. Rich seemed to be dividing his attention between glowering at the malfunctioning TV, and looking worriedly at Collin's antics. By the time Hal made it to Rich's beanbag chair (he had to walk gingerly, and therefore slow) Collin appeared to have moved onto more practical methods of checking the television set, such as looking at the cords in the back.

Rich turned to look at Hal with concern as he limped over and carefully set himself down next to Rich.

"You sure that you're ok, Hal? You do look pretty beat" said Rich.

Hal nodded. "I am. But it's all good. The way I broke through today was awesome. Plus Wiz said that if I pass some test he's gonna give me a better amulet, AND-"

Hal paused dramatically, watching Rich look back at him, interested now.

"He'll let me enter in some huge competition, where I can get all sorts of stuff. Like crazy items, more training, and even be able to go on missions." Rich's eyes widened a bit, clearly starting to look excited. And actually, Hal thought to himself, he looked a bit annoyed too.

"What? Really? I wonder what it is, exactly? I need to enter in that too." He paused, thoughts and possibilities bouncing around in his mind. Then he frowned.

"Damnit, why didn't Dan mention this to us? "

"He was probably too drunk to remember," called Collin, from behind the television. He was still rummaging around back there.

Rich frowned again, clearly annoyed, but excited at the same time. "I am so in. We have to ask Dan about this tomorrow. Ok, Collin?"

There was a grunt of assent from behind the TV.

Rich stopped again, and Hal got the feeling that something had just occurred to him, because his face seemed to get longer.

"Yo, Collin, maybe you should be careful back there, there was smoke coming off that thing after all."

That's right. Hal forgot about that. Weird. He didn't think that TV's could fry out like that. Collin waved them off, said that he didn't care what it took, he'd figure it out. He also said that everything looked fine in the back anyway, and it made no sense. Hal shrugged.

Then Hal turned to Rich again, something had been bugging him- oh right. "Yo Rich, what was that crap you shouted just before you flew across the room just now?"

Rich grinned. "It's my foci. 'Celeriorum Me Fac'. It means 'Make me faster' or 'Give me speed' or something like that. Dan taught it to me. It's Latin, and Dan said that the words have power."

"Foci? What the hell does that mean?" Hal asked, annoyed that he didn't know. Rich assumed "lecture-mode" and Hal resisted the urge to pound him for being a know-it-all.

"Foci. It's whatever power you use to focus your will onto things. In this case, I used this old command, spoken a certain way, to increase the kinetic force in my own body." Rich paused, seemed to see that Hal was still drawing a blank.

"It's just like your amulet. You focus on it, and change things. In your case, make gravity affect your body less."

"Oh ok. I get it." Said Hal. "No offense, but it makes you sound kinda fruity."

Rich frowned.

Hal laughed. "Don't worry though, that move you pulled was wicked awesome. It makes it worth it I guess." Hal paused, and then grinned. "I can still kick your ass though. Easy."

For a moment, Hal thought Rich had taken offense to this, but then he lightened up and laughed. Hal laughed with him, slapping him on the back. After a moment he turned, and saw Collin, who was sitting sulkily in the couch, apparently having given up his quest for the moment.

"What's wrong man? You look like your dog died."

"The TV," he began. "I can't figure out. It makes no sense. Everything back there looks fine. Where did the smoke come from? Why-"

Hal cut him off "Dude, don't worry about it. Just wait for Mirvin; he always seems to figure it out."

"But it's like its resisting me somehow; it makes no sense, it-"

"COLLIN" Hal shouted. He was tired already and didn't need to hear anymore of this...

The TV flickered on, in a surge of power, the screen turning a bright blue, then a sheet-white, then it sputtered, and died once more. Everyone stared, dumbstruck. At that point, Mirvin came down the stairs, wearing some weird gadgets, Michael-style. "Mirvin deficient on amino-enzymes and combustible carbohydrates" He began, dance-walking down the stairs. "And additionally-"He paused. "Why does everyone stare at Mirvin?"

Hal pointed to the TV. "Fix it, nerd. Now."

Mirvin mumbled to himself, as he meandered towards the television set. Despite Mirvin clearly meaning for it to be under his breath, the mumbling was distinctly audible to all.

"Stupid Hal, Makes Mirvin do everything, Does no one care about Mirvin's day? No, Mirvin only useful for FIXING things, well! Mirvin will no take it. No Mirvin-"

Before Mirvin had even reached the television set, it flickered on, back to the channel it had been on before the whole ordeal.

Hal stared at the set, then at Mirvin, then at the set again. Mirvin was looking at the TV, confused.

"Ok. Um thanks Mirvin buddy." He said, a little shocked.

The next day was a Saturday, but Hal wanted a chance at that test Wizard had for him, so he headed through his bedroom window after his morning stretches and breakfast.

Hal went to Michael's desk, and was told that Wizard was in the actual library section, waiting for him. Hal opened the big wood doors, wondering why Wizard wasn't in his study.

He found Wizard in the very back, sitting at a desk Hal didn't remember seeing there before. Beside him was a huge square block of concrete, looking very out of place on the library rug. Hal had a sickening feeling he knew what that was for.

As Hal approached Wizard, he noticed that the library was looking pretty empty today. He wondered if that was intentional. As Hal drew close to Wizard, the old man spoke up.

'Good morning, Hal. Nice to see you. And yes, you are correct about the state of the library, and the fact that I am meeting you here instead of up in my study. I cleared out this area on purpose, so we would not disturb anyone. And we cannot use my study, because I have set it up for your test, which you may attempt after today's lesson.

Hal decided not to even think about how Wizard knew what he was thinking. "You may go ahead and try to lift that concrete block now. But please, I do not wish a repeat of yesterday. Do not attempt to lift it until you are sure you have reduced its weight considerably. Take your time. The work here should be with your mind, not your muscles. If you are straining or sweating, than you are attempting it too early.

Over the next few hours, Hal was tempted to try and lift the block many times. He did try actually, just once. He hastily replaced the block when Wizard looked at him with disapproving concern. This was good, since Hal felt as though the block would tear his arms off. He just couldn't reduce the gravity affecting the stupid thing quite enough. Or barely at all, to be honest. Wizard told him not to worry about it though. It was going to take time for him to learn to affect materials other than himself, so Wizard said.

As Hal tried again and again to reduce the weight of the concrete block, he amused himself by asking Wizard questions now and again.

"Hey Wiz, why do people call you Wizard anyway? Isn't that kind of I dunno, weird? Do you have like, a real name?"

Wizard chuckled, amused. He pondered then, rest his chin in his hands and looking up at the ceiling. "Why I suppose it is a bit esoteric, yes. To be honest, it's a bit of an inside joke. And yes, I do have a real name, but Wizard is so much easier to use, don't you agree?" Hal guessed he couldn't argue with him there.

Suddenly Hal started getting an odd feeling. And the strangest part about it was that the feeling wasn't coming from his situation. It was coming from a LOCATION. It was specific; Hal could feel something behind him, feeding him this feeling. It was totally divorced from anything he was doing right now. It was like someone behind him had him hooked up at some kind of contraption that just fed him energy. It took him a while to pinpoint the location, but continuing to work with the amulet seemed to help.

Finally he thought he knew where it was coming from, and looked in that direction. It was indistinct at first, hazy. But as he focused, it became clear enough to see a little, although the image still had a ghostly effect. It was at the back of the room, a few feet in front of the back book shelves. It looked like there was a hole in the ground, and something was coming out of it, something that looked like hazy, blue flame.

Hal stopped his work on the concrete for a moment.

"Hey Wizard, what's that?"

Wizard looked up from something he was reading. "What is what?"

Hal pointed to the glowing thing behind him. "That. It's like a weird hole in the ground, that's spitting something weird out. And it's giving me a strange feeling."

Wizard blinked, surprised. "You can see the node?" He asked, disbelievingly. Wizard shook his head, laughing. "Hal, you continue to surprise me, every day. "

Hal felt a surge of pride. He totally kicked ass. It was then that Wizard explained to him that the feeling he got was from something called quintessence. This apparently was the crap that made up everything. Hal didn't really understand that part too much. But basically he got the idea that quintessence was what you could use to make cool stuff with magic. The reason why Hal could see it now was probably because his training was making him come into touch with other of those weird "sphere" thingies that Wizard was always talking about. Wizard told Hal that apparently he had a natural talent for something called "Prime" which was the sphere of reality with dealt with how crap is made. Hal nodded throughout all this, not really getting what the old dude was talking about. But anyway, he could see weird blue flames now, and it was awesome.

After a few more minutes of Hal failing to get anywhere with the concrete block, and being distracted by the blue fire, Wizard stood up.

"Ok Hal, that's enough for today. It takes time you know, you mustn't rush things." Wizard walked towards the door, holding his books. He motioned to Hal. "Come on now, you can just leave that block where it is."

Hal followed Wizard out into the room with the desks, feeling a little tired. Wizard cleared off some space on one of the many empty ones (not too many people here today) and had lunch brought in. They relaxed there a while, eating. Wizard explained that he wanted Hal completely ready for his test, since it was not especially easy. Hal asked Wizard some more questions about the node. Wizard told him that there were a limited number of these places in the world, and that the one in the Library had been moved here. And that actually, it was what kept this building running, and it's what kept it within the bubble outside of time they were in. Wizard launched into a long lecture about the spheres of Correspondence and Matter and how they were used to run the Library, but Hal's eyes glazed over pretty quick. So Wizard switched to explaining how the nodes were extremely important, and re-capturing nodes from their enemies was one of the things the Library did. Hal perked up at this, especially when Wizard told him that since Hal obviously had a little talent with Prime and detecting Nodes, this might be a mission Hal could eventually go on. That was totally cool. Hal couldn't wait.

After Hal was fully recovered, and ready to kick ass again, Wizard led him toward the stairs leading to his study. He stopped at the top, and Hal noticed that there was a rope barring off the hallway in front of him. There was a sign on the rope that said "Do not enter without speaking to Wizard". Hal scratched his head.

"What's this Wiz?" Hal asked, confused.

Wizard smiled. "It's your test Hal. It's very simple. In a minute I'm going to teleport to my desk in my study. There I will wait for you with your new amulet, sitting right on my desk. I will also have the information and entry form for the Inter-House Level 2 Tournament coming up in a little while. All you have to do is come down to my office and see me. It's that easy."

Hal looked at Wizard, suspicious. "No way man. There's definitely a catch. What did you do to the hallway? Why is that rope there?"

Wizard looked innocent. "Well, it's possible that the hallway in front of you is only a few feet thick, and that it can only reliably support a weight of about 110 pounds."

Hal stared. "110 pounds? What? Dude I weigh like 215."

Wizard looked thoughtful for a moment. "Hmm. You have a point there; I guess you'll just have to make yourself lighter then, now won't you?" Hal gaped. Wizard chuckled, and then got serious.

"Don't worry Hal. You can do it. Don't run, walk. Focus. This is not a test of your body. REMEMBER that. If you run, you will only increase the pressure on the floor. Remember, gravity only has a pull on you if you let it. Use the amulet, force gravity to let you go."

Hal tried not to let his voice betray how nervous he felt. "Ok, yeah sure. Um, what happens if I fall? You know, just out of curiosity. I figured I should know, you know- since that won't happen. "

Wizard nodded. His face remained serious, but Hal could swear that his eyes held a look of amusement, just for a second.

"Well now. I have a certain young woman under my tutelage by the name of Erica. I decided to let her continue her training with Correspondence by allowing her to move materials from where they are made in the kitchen, and instantly transport them to underneath this hallway, which was made by a few students practicing Matter. I believe you two are acquainted? She tells me that you met during the contest involving Kristyna and James? She also mentioned that you spoke some words at the match that she heavily disagreed with, something involving an Italian dish, perhaps?

Hal groaned, and turned his head toward the ceiling. He had said that James could never lose to a chick that used pizza as a weapon. Wonderful. Some chick who had a fetish for knives was in charge of putting crap underneath he hall way to break his fall. He REALLY couldn't fail now.

Wizard noted Hal's expression and reassured him. "Don't worry. I made sure to approve all the materials she used." He paused, distaste showing on his face. "It's perfectly safe. I don't recommend failing though. It might be... unpleasant." He looked Hal straight in the eyes.

"No matter. You can do it Hal. Keep your weight under half of what it is now and you will not encounter as much as a tremor in the ground. I'll be waiting in my office. Just come and pay me a visit. I will see you in a few minutes" He finished, sincerely. And with a snap, disappeared.

Great. Just Wonderful. Not only did he have a serious weight problem, but there were freaky chicks out for his head.

Hal calmed himself, took a deep breath, and concentrated on the amulet in his right hand. When he felt the energy surge, cutting gravity's pull on his body, he closed his eyes, and took a step forward over the rope and into the suspicious looking hallway.


	5. Node Crybabies Allowed part 2

Hal gingerly put his foot down onto the hallway. He knew he was lighter, by definitely more than half. He could feel it. He felt like he could beat anyone at jumping right now, he felt so light... though he decided not to try it. And actually, he took Wizard's advice, and went slow, keeping his will and focus gripped tightly around his amulet. He continued walking down the hall, being as careful as he could, and keeping the pace steady. He was a little over one hundred pounds now, he knew. Keeping the concentration to stay there was really difficult. Gravity was not happy about him messing with it. It was fluctuating, sometimes rising. Sometimes his steps ended up fairly uneven, because he wasn't quite used to being so light. After a minute or two, Hal looked up, still desperately forcing his will through the amulet at his own gravity.

He was half way there now. He could see Wizard's door down at the end of the hall. One step after another, after another, in a kind of slow moon-walk. He picked up his foot for another step, and didn't bring it forward far enough, he tripped on a loose floorboard, and he felt his concentration slip. The floorboards around his feet cracked. He was right on the line. Hal suddenly became angry. _Damnit, this is stupid! I'm so close! I can't lose it now!_ Hal grew desperate, feeling his weight hit 112, and the floorboards under him beginning to buckle. He leapt forward, Wizard's door mere feet away now...

And landed on a wood-floor that snapped beneath him like two twigs tied together. The wood splintered, and he fell through it, and landed in something soft and gooey, that splashed dramatically as he landed.

Damnit! Fuck!

After Hal had finished thrashing around and cursing in frustration in outrage, he looked around the area below the floorboards. It looked like it had been all hollowed out, maybe 6 feet underneath the floor above him. That wood floor above him looked like it was only a foot or two thick. Also, something smelled really odd. And it felt...lumpy.

Hal was afraid for a moment. It smelled like, like... Tomato sauce. And the lumpy stuff below it was-

Dough? What? It wasn't like those were the best materials to break his fall with. There was something else too, little pieces of something in the tomato sauce, like... paper? Hal flopped around, trying to find a paper that wasn't thoroughly soaked in tomato sauce. He found one finally, and read it. It said-

PIZZA 2 BOYS 0 Love, Kristyna Erica

Those BITCHES Hal thought, slamming a hand into dough and tomato sauce.

Hal sloshed underneath the floorboards, all the way to the other side. It took a him a few tries, but he finally managed to concentrate on his amulet enough to jump up and punch a big enough hole in the floorboards. After another jump or two, he grabbed the edge of the actual floor at the top of the stairs. He walked down the stairs, dripping tomato sauce and dough. It was disgusting and humiliating, but Hal kept his head high.

Please God, Hal thought, just have one person, just ONE person look at me cross wise, or say one DAMN thing about this. I need to break someone's spine right now, it would make me feel so much better.

Hal couldn't wait to get back, take a shower, and then dream about acing this thing tomorrow, and rubbing it in those bitches' faces.

As Hal trudged miserably down the stairs and across the office room, he got a few looks from people at the desks and walking by. But as soon as they noticed his expression, most people quickly hurried past him. This happened until he was almost to the window that took him to his bedroom.

Two old men with twisting white beards and wearing black robes with gold fringes approached him. They also wore disapproving expressions.

"Young Man, what do you think you are doing? The Order of Hermes is not a, a..." he sputtered, clearly trying to think of something loathsome to say. "...a children's playpen" the man finished dramatically.

"Clearly not" the other intoned, helpfully.

Hal had no patience for this shit.

"Up yours, geezer" he said simply, not even slowing down. The last thing Hal saw in his peripheral vision, was a look of pure shock on the man's face.

Good, Hal thought. At least today wasn't a total loss.

Over the next few days, Hal continued to fail at his test, falling into all sorts of disgusting things. But he also learned a whole lot about Prime. Wizard told him that he could no longer really teach Hal anything more about the force of gravity. At this level, all Hal could do was get his mind to BELIEVE what he already knew. That gravity's strength can be altered, using things like Hal's amulet that had power over it.

So Wizard switched to teaching Hal about Prime, the sphere that governs the structure of reality. How things come to be- their patterns. As a reward for discovering the node all by himself, Wizard gave Hal a new foci. It was a chain, with an eyeglass on the end. Wizard said that if Hal looked through the glass, he could see nodes clearly. Hal knew he could already sense when something like that was in the area, by that thrill felling he got. But he couldn't really find where one of them was, unless he looked through the glass. Then it was easy. They stood out like sore thumbs. It was weird watching people walk by a giant pillar of blue fire in the back of the library, without even noticing anything.

At the moment, Hal was sitting in front of Wizard at a table. The library was empty except for them. Wizard was on the other side of the table, and there were a dozen candles on the table in between them. Wizard had said that two of them were being powered by Wizard's will; the other 10 were just naturally lit candles. His task was to find which candles were powered by magic. Hal concentrated, holding his hand out to each flame. He knew that Wizard was weaving a spell, that much was certain. (In the past, sometimes Wizard would do exercises like this, and then later Hal would learn that Wizard was just sitting there, with his eyes closed, tricking Hal into thinking he was doing something.)

What a conniving old bastard.

No he was definitely weaving, Hal could feel the thrill at the back of his neck.

Hal concentrated, stretching his hand out before each flame. He knew that he should feel a sharp pang in his hand if there was magic being done on it. After patiently doing each of the 12 candles, Hal didn't feel anything. Had he missed it? Hal felt a weird thrill again and this time it came from father away, from behind him. Suddenly a thought occurred to Hal. Wizard could be doing something ELSE. Something that didn't involve making a flame. Something Hal couldn't see outright. Hal turned around, scanning the room. It was so faint, but way, way in the back, he could sense a pattern different from what he was used to. He couldn't really see it, only almost. It was like trying to read a book when it was really dark in the room. Almost, sometimes certain words, but never understanding. Hal couldn't wait until he could actually read patterns like that. But for now, it was obvious what wizard was doing. A book was hovering in the air, on the other side of the room.

"You old, sneaky bastard. "Hal said, turning back to Wizard.

Wizard laughed heartily, the sound deep and rich in his throat.

"That was very good Hal. You are getting better much faster than I thought. I bet you can almost see some patterns now.

Hal nodded. He couldn't wait until he could see them clearly. Think about how useful that would be in a fight! Kristyna wouldn't be able to pull any dumbass tricks on him when he fought her. Or that other chick, Erica. He didn't know what she could do, but Hal didn't like surprises involving knives. And he did want to fight them now. After spending a week falling into pizza sauce, chocolate, tapioca and all sorts of other shit, Hal was beginning to grow a grudge.

He was also starting to have trouble focusing on his hockey. He just didn't have the drive for it anymore. It was weird. The last time they lost, Hal barely cared, he just wanted to get home and talk to Wiz, or check out the Red Sox game.

Oh well, Hal thought, I'm sure I'll get back into it soon.

After Hal returned home, the first thing he saw was something Mirvin-sized, walking down the stairs. Only it was completely covered in gadgets. It had a VR helmet on, a backpack that seemed to be a computer of some kind, and other various blinking trinkets.

"What the hell is that?" Said Hal loudly, and the weird blinking and whirring figure turned around.

"It is I, Mirvin. Micheal has equipped Mirvin with many electronic implements to increase the Mirvin's Elite-level standing."

Hal was getting real tired of rolling his eyes. Instead he just said, "Uh, whatever," and walked past the blinking Mirvin, to the couch beyond where Rich was staring at a blank screen, and Collin was shouting at the TV.

"This isn't funny! Work... NOW!" He shouted, wiggling his fingers magically. Nothing happened.

Collin slumped in his chair. Hal decided to get Collin's mind off his continuing obsession, by asking him what he was learning from Dan.

Collin brightened.

"Fire!" shouted Collin, planeteer style, thrusting a hand with a red-jeweled ring on it.

"Oh. Right. So you mean your doin' crap with the force of heat and fire?"

Collin nodded vigorously. "I use my ring, and stuff goes BOOM" he gestured with his hands, making a mini explosion, which he accompanied with "explosion" sounds, that had Collin spitting more than Hal really liked.

Hal decided to ask Rich what the hell Collin was talking about later.

After an hour of sitting around watching TV (which eventually flickered back on, for no apparent reason at all) Rich stood up, and announced that this was depressing, and they needed to go out again. After some debate, they agreed to be brave, and try going back to Vertigo. Oddly enough, this time Mirvin actually agreed. Apparently he wanted to "try out a few things". Once Hal realized that Mirvin wanted to go looking the way he did, like a walking-talking neon-sign, he tried to convince Mirvin that that was insane. But Mirvin wouldn't hear of it. Hal shrugged. If he was lucky, someone else would kick that kid's ass through a window. That would be fine.

While Hal was driving there, with Mirvin in the back, he asked him what the hell all that blinking crap on his head actually was supposed to DO. Mirvin lifted the weird VR visor he seemed to be wearing and said:

"Mirvin can see things that are far away with his helmet. He also has a constant uplink to the world wide web."

Hal started.

"Dude you can use the internet with that thing, right now?" Mirvin decided to be boring this time, and merely nodded.

"Kick ass! What was the Red Sox scores for today?"

Mirvin put down his VR helmet visor, and made some weird head motions that looked like twitches. After a moment, he put it back up.

"The men with red footwear defeated the carnivorous land-mammals 5-2". Hal paused, confused. Oh that's right. The Sox played the Tigers today. Awesome.

Hal parked, and the group of them began walking towards Vertigo. Abruptly, Hal got an odd feeling. His breath caught, and he felt like cool air had just surrounded his whole body. It was that thrilling feeling, and man it was STRONG. There was a node nearby. He just knew it. And if there was a node, they had to go find it, and then tell The Library about it. Those things were wicked rare. Hal knew how important it was, after working the node for a week.

"Guys, Whoa, wait up a sec, will ya?" They were all a ways ahead of him now. Presently they stopped, and turned around to look at him, questioningly. Hal took out the chain with the spyglass on it, that he had around his neck. He took it off his neck and looked through it, trying to find the node. P "What's up Hal?" asked Rich.

"There's a node around here, I can feel it."

"Are you serious?" said Rich, alarmed. "Wow. Dan told us about those this week. It's basically the only thing that keeps the Library running. It's more important than a mountain of gold."

"Or lemon meringue pies. MMMM, pie..." said Collin. Once again, he was ignored by all.

Hal made his way across the street, checking for cars, and then checked his spyglass again. Suddenly he saw it. It was about a hundred yards away, down an alley. It looked like a fountain of blue fire, coming up out of the ground. It the fire was like liquid, sputtering and gushing out into the air, turning a pale green once it separated from the fountain, before it died.

"There it is!" Hal shouted, before jogging towards it.

After they were within about 10 meters of achieving the alleyway, a voice from behind Hal shouted, "Wait, Halt!". They all stopped and turned.

"There's someone in front of the quintessence nodular point" said Mirvin. "There are three individuals. One has an eye apparatus, that is looking right at me through the walls. He does not appear friendly. And..." Mirvin paused. His visor was down. Hal waited. Mirvin was a freak, but he had a feeling that he actually knew what he was talking about this time. Hal was excited to get a hold of that node, but he should find out who those punks were, and why they were hanging out near his node.

"The man with the eye piece is rather large, and his associates are both armed. One with a bat, and the other with an electric stun device of some sort. They are all whirling their weapons and smiling. The man with the eye device is motioning for me to come closer. He is smiling as well. Mirvin does not think it is a friendly social gesture."

Hal felt a surge of anger. They were staking out HIS node. No way. No freaking way.

Collin frowned. "Is the guy with the eye piece looking this way, right now?" He asked, calmly.

"Affirmative." Mirvin said, still making the weird ticking motions with his VR helmeted-head.

Collin took a step forward on the side walk, to come to the head of the group so now he was the closest to the alleyway. He pulled himself up tall, and then proudly stuck out his arm and held out a middle finger. Rich snickered.

"Oh dear, they didn't like that". Mirvin said, he paused again. "I have checked photographs at the local police station for these individuals. It was a simple hack for an elite such as myself. The one with the eyeglass has no record at all. He appears to not exist. The other two have warrants out for their arrest, for misdemeanor crimes.

Hal grinned. "Well, if he doesn't exist, then he won't mind me kickin his ass. Come on everyone, lets go say hello to our new punk-ass buddies."

Before anyone could say anything, Hal was striding towards the alleyway, slipping the eyeglass back around his neck, and taking the amulet out of his pocket. He wrapped the cord around his right knuckles.

When he turned the corner, the others quickly catching up, there were three men- all gathered around a metal trash barrel with fire in it. Hal heard a "Yesss!" escape in a whisper from Collin. Hal shook it off and addressed the three in front of him.

The man with the eye piece was black, and he was huge. Like Derek-sized. A punk's a punk though. The dressings don't matter. The one on the right had a tazer, which he was activating over and over, and looking at Hal. He was weasely looking, with greasy brown hair. The third was short and bald, with a scar over his eye. He held a bat in his right arm, and rested the other end in his left. He was smirking smugly.

Hal got right to the point. "Sorry boys, but we need this node. More than you. So get your punk asses out."

The man with the metal thing over his right eye took a couple steps forward to stand within a few feet of Hal. He moved slow, and his feet seemed to rest heavily on the ground.

"Our orders are to guard this area for three days. Who are you? On what authority do you come here?"

"Dude we're from Hermes. But that don't matter, just leave and there'll be no problems."

Mirvin's head appeared from behind Hal. "Mirvin will report you to the authorities!"

The man with the eye glared at Mirvin, who quickly retreated behind Hal again. Hal frowned and craned his neck around to shout at Mirvin.

"Dude Mirvin, quit being a pansy, I oughta-"Hal suddenly sensed movement in front of him, and he turned just in time to see a big, black fist swinging straight for his head.

Hal just barely managed to get his head out of the way of most of the blow's force. It still hit him though, grazing his cheek and bouncing off the bone there. It felt like he had been hit with a metal baseball bat. He staggered back, his cheek bleeding and a little bruised. What the crap? Was he a rock or what? Now Hal was pissed. They wanted to play it that way did they? FINE. He'd kick his metal ass from here to Pluto.

Hal charged forward. He concentrated on his amulet ,getting ready to negate as much of the metal dude's gravity as he could and send him flying. He swung his fist forward and the metal man couldn't recover fast enough from his blow to block. The blow hit the man square in the chest, and as it hit Hal flexed his mind, willing the guy to be lighter. He knew that he had done well that time, the guy's gravity had dropped to half.

Still, his hand struck the guy HARD, and it hurt like hell. It was like punching the sidewalk. The guy fell back a few inches, clearly surprised that Hal had managed to unbalance him. But the guy should have gone FLYING under that kind of pressure from his fist with half gravity. What the heck was this freak?

Hal sensed movement all around him now, as Collin and Rich jumped to defend him. They were quickly being approached by the greasy guy with the tazer, and the bald guy with the baseball bat. Rich and Collin immediately intercepted them, and the fight was on. Hal sensed Mirvin cowering right behind him. What a pansy.

But Hal had bigger problems. Much bigger problems. He hesitated, after the last job that brute did on his arm, and this gave the guy time to recover. The brute stood up straight now, and he was probably about six feet tall, and as wide as two Hals. He had a silver contraption in his right eye that looked like a mechanical lens on a camera; it could extend or detract back into his eye socket. He had a shaved head, and wore loose clothing, army boots, and thick black gloves. He took a step forward, and Hal could've sworn that the pavement cracked under the man's step.

Hal took a step back. This wasn't cool. Hal was certain he had halved his weight. How much did he weigh? Even after Hal's magic, the guy still must've weighed like three or four hundred pounds at LEAST. That made him like eight or nine hundred altogether. Hal weighed 215 tops. He was at a serious disadvantage. He was probably quicker though. It couldn't be easy to move all that frame around fast. Hal would just have to do the magic thing again, and then try to check him when he was off balance, Hockey style.

"That's right bitch, Hockey rules!" Hal said, kind of stupidly. He was excited though. It was ass kicking time. He set himself, waiting for the guy to make a move.

The guy stepped forward again, slowly, like the big lumbering giant he was. "I do not understand" he said his voice a deep rumble.

Hal hoped Mirvin wasn't too close behind him, cuz he was gonna have to move here in a minute; and fast. For right now though, his opponent seemed to be just watching him. Hal risked a brief glance around. His buds were holdin their own, sort of.

Behind Metal-Eye, Rich had his wooden half-hockey stick out, and he was swinging it half-hazardly at the weasel guy with the tazer. The man was dancing out of Rich's reach and crouching low, looking for an opening. To Hal's left, Collin was backing up, looking lost and desperately trying to avoid the short bald guy, who was swinging the baseball bat at him in wide circles. Fortunately Collin was good at running away.

"You are doing things which dishonor the earth. Should you continue to cause the Earth harm, as her chosen guardians, we will stop you." The man rumbled to Hal.

What? What was this guy jabbering about? Whatever. He was messing with Hal's node, and plus he had started this fight, so Hal was sure as hell gonna finish it.

He was about to say something witty back, but the guy moved forward, quick as a snake, and threw out a fist to pound Hal's face in. Whoa, he was faking slowness before. That bastard. Hal just barely avoided it, ducking and rolling to the left as the brutish fist just barely grazed his bruin's hat. Hal decided to take advantage of his opponent's unbalance, by pouncing forward, amulet burning with power in his hand. He threw his weight into a shoulder and hit Metal-Eye as hard as he could. Again it didn't matter; Hal bounced off like he had just checked a granite boulder. Two huge hands clamped down on his waist, and lifted him off the ground, as if he were a sack of crap. Hal struggled to free himself, but the hands were like metal vices, and seemed to dig into his hips. He yelled out in fury, as the brute picked him up over his head. While Hal hung there in the air, struggling, he saw a brief blur of the other fights

Collin was still dancing away from the swinging bat, desperately looking for something to defend himself with. Collin shouted at Rich, and Rich tossed him his hunting knife, which Collin caught with one hand. He turned toward the bald guy, grinning. The instant he did so, the bald guy hit his hand with the bat, knocking the knife out of his hand and sending it clattering down the alley. Collin clutched his hand, cursing.

, Rich tossed a knife to the unarmed Collin and then promptly got hit with a tazer in his left arm. He cursed in pain and jumped back, clutching the burnt area on his wrist.

This wasn't looking good, Hal thought. At about that same time, Metal-Eye decided to send Hal flying across the alley into a bunch of trash cans on the other side. He hurtled through the air, crashing into the metal trash cans, and heavily denting one of them. Lids and refuse clattered all over the place, and a banana peel landed on his head. Hal's left ankle send a shock of pain up his leg when he tried to stand on it. That was IT.

"You're a dead man!" Shouted Hal, charging forward, ignoring his ankle that felt like a knife was sticking out of it. He raced towards Metal-Eye, aiming a punch for his non-metal eye. But Metal-Eye leapt forward suddenly as Hal was almost there, sticking out a fist hard as cement to implode Hal's head. "Oh fuck" thought Hal, knowing he couldn't dodge in time. He sensed movement a few feet to his right, and saw a freckly, ghost-thin arm with a watch on it stretched out quickly, and a finger push a button on it.

Just before Metal-Eye's fist connected, he bellowed in pain and rage, a wisp of smoke coming out of his scope-eye, towards the sky. Hal fell on his rump, allieving his screaming ankle. He just sat there, in awe. That was fucking close.

"You're a bad man!" shouted Mirvin, as Metal-Eye writhed around on the ground. Hal looked dazedly at the two other fights in front of him. Rich was dodging more tazer-thrusts from weasel-man, and Collin was cradling his hand and dancing under bat swings. Presently, Collin's face brightened and he ducked under a vicious strike from the bald guy, and ran towards the barrel at the back of the alley. It still burned, with a slowly ebbing little flame. The bald guy chased after him, bat held ready.

Rich muttered something under his breath, and suddenly darted forward low under a tazer thrust, and swung his hockey stick hard between the weasel-guy's legs. The guy groaned and collapsed on the ground, moaning.

Meanwhile the bald guy was running forward, chasing the squealing Collin. As soon as Collin reached the barrel, he skittered around behind it and held up his non-injured hand, with the red ring on it.

"Take this! Go-Fire!" The ring glowed orange, and the tiny flame in the barrel swelled three times its size, and a spark jumped off it, catching on bald-man's shirt. The man yelled, swatting at it, but Collin squinted his eyes, concentrating harder, and the flame swelled to cover the man's entire chest. He screamed and ran around, swatting at his shirt.

Hal felt numb. He saw Rich look up from his kneeling position in front of the Weasel guy, and notice Collin now walking behind the flaming man, gloating.

"Haha! That's right! I'm Collin, FIRE GOD!" He winced after that, cradling his hand. It only looked bruised, not broken.

Rich's mouth dropped. "Collin you imbecile he's a HUMAN BEING, not one of your Gi-Joe toys!"

Collin's mouth formed a little "o". The guy was on the floor now, rolling, so Collin stepped on his back with his feet, stamping out the flames. He lay there, groaning, his skin looking red and black through a hole in his charred shirt.

Collin looked down at him, appalled. "Shit, I didn't even-"

Rich stood up from where he was kneeling, shaking his head. He glanced back at Hal, who was sitting down in front of Metal-Eye, who was now quietly moaning. "We weren't ready for this. We got lucky. And-"He paused, looking at Collin.

"We went too far. There was no reason to fight here. These are PEOPLE. Collin you can't just torch them indiscriminately. That was sloppy. You could have killed him. How would you feel then?"

Collin looked shocked, but didn't say anything. Rich turned, to look at Hal and Mirvin.

"Hey Mirvin, can you contact Michael, and tell him what happened? We're gonna need some help here."

Mirvin nodded. "Are you alright Hal?" Rich asked.

"Yeah man, but look. They jumped us, we had to fight back. There punk losers, they don't understand anything else."

Rich looked skeptical.

"You didn't exactly approach them with diplomatic poise" He quipped.

Hal shook his head. "Dude, whatever. You saw them; they were not going to talk things over."

Rich didn't say anything else, but he still looks troubled. He knelt down over the guy he had whacked in the balls.

"I apologize for less than honorable tactics there, but you left me little choice. Jumping us, and trying to triple team Hal was not exactly honorable towards you either. Don't worry; we'll get you all help in a moment. And I'm sure I didn't cause you permanent damage."

The guy only moaned in response.

Hal got to his feet again, and turned towards Mirvin, who was twitching with his Helmet down. After a moment, he stopped, and put the visor back up.

"Michael gonna send us help?"

"Affirmative" said Mirvin, though a bit weakly. He looked shaken.

Hal hopped over to him. "Hey man, don't worry it's over now, we totally kicked ass. Thanks for your help, I though I was fucked. What was that thing anyway? That watch you got?"

"It is an electronic disabler" Mirvin said, more quiet than normal. "Michael gave it to Mirvin, for completing the first stage of elite hacker training."

"Cool man. And cheer up will ya? These punks were never a problem." Hal ruffled Mirvin's greasy hair, chuckling.

But in his head he felt a little worried. That had been really close. No, no Hal could've gotten out of the way in time. It was no problem. No sweat. He would just train harder. After today, Hal felt sure he could ace that test outside Wizard's office. Even though it didn't work very well, he had definitely halved that guy's weight, under extreme pressure. All Hal needed was to train harder, and this wouldn't happen again. The next time he went up against these weird techno freaks he'd wipe them across the planet. Didn't matter how much mass you had if you had NO gravity affecting you. Hal would learn how to do that, this he vowed.

Hal felt a tingling again, and he turned. A huge blue fountain of flame stood before him, sputtering with greens and magentas. It was awesome. Hal approached it, and clutched the spyglass on his neck, like Wiz had taught him. He fell to his knees, relaxing himself as much as he could.. After a minute, he felt energy flow into him, his ankle hurt less, and he was no longer breathing hard from the fight. He stood up, ready to take on the world.

After a few minutes a line split the air at the end of the alley way, and a circle opened, showing Dan. He stepped out of it, and approached the foursome. Rich explained to him what happened, and Dan quickly healed their injuries. He healed the punks moaning on the ground too. He told Hal and his roomates to go through the portal, and that he had everything under control here.

"Good job guys, this node will really come in handy."

"But next time, not so much frying huh?" Dan said, looking at Collin.

Collin hung his head.

As Hal walked through the library towards the window that would take him home, he thought about today's events. His ankle still hurt a little, and his shirt was torn. He definitely needed to change. He wasn't quite as tired; thanks to the quintessence/blue fire stuff he had absorbed back at his node. Still, he almost got his ass handed to him. That was it; Hal would train like crazy tomorrow. Then he'd pass that test of Wizard's and head off to the house-wide contest. That tournament was as good as won.


	6. Hermetic Tournament 1

Heremetic Tournament

Collin giggled. Fire was cool. He liked to watch it. The orange-red flicker moved and licked at the air constantly. Collin knew the flames wanted to spread out, to move to grow, to burn on anything, on everything, to take whatever shape spread it the most, fed its energy. But this time he needed it in a certain shape. That was the key.

The fire flared quite brightly now, in its metal bowl, the bundle of the twigs fueling it, counting as its base, its home. It's starting point.

Collin sat at the table the bowl rested on, his ringed hand extended, as he concentrated. The fire slowly took on distinct shape, instead of its usual random flickering. It was round and bright glowing red at the bottom of the bowl, where the twigs were. But the swaying flickering flames soon branched out, in flickering cylinders of orange light and heat. They began to look like six separate tentacles.

Collin was very fond of his little fire squid. He wished he could take it home with him, and feed it his psychology books. Maybe Mirvin's dresser. He grinned at the thought. It was kinda hard, keeping it that shape, but mostly because any shape was as good as any other to the fire. It wanted to spread out as much as possible only, it resisted form. It wasn't stuck in one shape like boring old matter. Right now all Collin could do was shape the fire a little, or increase/decrease its intensity. But soon, verrrry sooooon he would learn more, then he could do anything!

But first thing's first. Now that he'd created his fire squid, like Dan had suggested, he could get going on that passing that test. (ok, Dan hadn't told him to make a fire-squid; Squidy was Collin's precious creation, after all. He had just told Collin that it might help with his control if he made it into a shape.)

Collin pushed out of his chair and stood up, so he could see both his squid, and the clothesline that hung a few feet over the table. The line was secured into either wall of Dan's apartment room. Twelve leaves hung on the line, each a foot apart. Collin frowned, those ones on the ends were gonna be tough to get at. There were 6 green ones and 6 red ones. And the reds ones definitely had to go.

But he couldn't touch the green ones. This was his like fifth attempt. And the tourney was tomorrow. It was now or never. It was surprisingly hard to make fire grow without burning not only the red leaves, but also the green leaves, the string, the desk, his arm, Dan's jacket, and various other furniture items. But this time, this he had had it for sure! Squidy would take it home.

"Go, My sweet fire squid! DESTROY THE RED ONES!" Dan, who was sitting in a chair nearby, raised an eyebrow, "um sure, whatever, go get 'em, uh… squidy?" Dan paused, confused. "What on earth is squidy?" Collin focused his will on the ring, and the fire surged in intensity, and the "tentacles" of the flame grew and stretched out, reaching, yearning for the red leaves above. Collin had to focus extra hard on the tentacles on the end, as they branched out over and beyond the table, to hit leaves a few feet in the air, and several feet off the end of the table. The fire started to die as it fell away from its fuel, but Collin made the end tentacles burst quick, using up their base fuel faster, just enough to lick the stems of the 2 end leaves. The stems glowed red, the 2 end tentacles died in puff of smoke. Collin held his breath. The two burst into small flames at the same time. YES!

"No SQUIDY NO!" He shouted. "The RED ones! The green are your friends!"

Eventually Collin managed to get all 6 guttering with flame. They burned up the leaves quickly and cleanly, leaving the green ones unsinged.

Collin danced around, delirious with glee.

'Yeah squidy, oh yeah squidy"

Dan laughed. "Good job Collin, and uh… you too… squidy." Collin made one of squidy's fiery tentacles wave at Dan once, before he released his hold on the fire with a satisfied sigh. It immediately dropped down into a slow ember burn, as the twigs were almost consumed now.

"Goodbye squidy, I'll see you soon!"

Dan started at Collin for a moment, forgetting himself. "Um yes. Right. Anyway that was good work Collin, excellent control. Of both the shape and the intensity of the flames. That should come in handy tomorrow… at the tournament. "

Collin whooped, and danced around.

Collin had strange dreams that night.

He was in the middle of the field, and all around him were fire squids. They were flying through the air all around him, dozens, hundreds of them, ranging around, their bodies glowing red, their tentacles flickering with fire and pushing off in the breeze. Collin was laughing maniacally, spinning around, and directing his fire-squids here and there. After a moment, evil shadowy looking figures jumped out from the trees, swinging bats and approaching Collin. Collin directed the fire-squids towards the new evil arrivals. They would float by, and lash out with one of their tentacles, generally in a tentacle shape anyway- the fire swayed and crackled. All around him the squid flew, cracking with energy. They would fly low by one of the evil men, and they would burst into flames, running around comically.

Collin cackled maniacally. "Yes my squid! Kill them! KILL THEM ALL!"

Suddenly an owl, freakishly larger than normal, appeared on a tree to Collin's left. It was almost as big as Collin was, and the branch it lighted on sagged under its weight. It was a regular looking owl, despite its size. It appeared to be a barn owl. White face, in a vague inverted heart shape. It had brown feathers and sharp talons. The eyes were unusually large though, and glowed yellow. "Hooo" it said, mournfully, looking at Collin and cocking its head to the side.

"Shut up!" shouted Collin, trying to focus back on torching people. Suddenly an image appeared in his mind.

It was a memory. Rich, saying "Collin, you imbecile! These are HUMANS not your gi-joe figures!" Then the image went away, and a shadow figure ran right by Collin, chased by a squid and bathed in fire. It was shouting- "Blast you Fire God! You've foiled all my evil plans!"

But right as it got to Collin it changed, and it was the face of the bald man he had fought earlier in the week. He smelled burning flesh, and saw blackened flesh peeling away from his arm, visible under his white shirt. Suddenly the man screamed and screamed, rolling around in agony. The scream seemed to go on and on and-

Collin sat up in his bed, sweat covering his face.

Mirvin's sleepy head appeared from over the side of the upper bunk.

"Please refrain from screaming." He said. "It makes my own efforts most difficult." With that he turned over and was soon snoring through his half blocked air passages. Stupid owl. It was the same one that had bothered his dreams those first few nights after Vertigo. Collin could feel such disappointment coming from that stupid owl. He sighed. Maybe the magical owl was right. He had never even thought about it before. H just liked fire and all. He had worked so hard to be able to use it even a little. And then in that alleyway by Vertigo last week. He had to be more careful- that's all. He would only use squidy to scare people. Or he may need to hurt them a little at the tournament, but he would always quickly put it out. Fire really hurt.

Having come to this epiphany, and having made his decision, Collin finally slept.

In the morning, Collin was late. It was a Saturday again, so there was no school, but he had to be at the Library by 11. As he quickly threw on clothes and brushed his teeth, he looked at himself in the mirror. He quickly combed his dirty blonde hair back, so it staid out of his face. He saw his sharp hazel eyes in the mirror too, and grinned. Fire only turned green when it was really hot. He was excited. Him and squidy were gonna rock today.

When Collin jumped through Hal's weirdly opaque bedroom window at quarter after 11, he immediately heard a shout from across the office room.

"Collin! Get over here, You're LATE!" Collin winced. It was Jeremiah. He trotted down to where a large-ish group of Library people were gathered. A good portion of them were wearing ocean-blue colored cloaks. Collin asked Jeremy about that, before he could yell at Collin more.

"Well, um. Oh that. Yes, our technical name within the Hermetic Order we belong to is "Blue House", hence- the cloaks. "

Collin nodded. "So how late am I? Is it a problem?

Jeremiah shook his head. He smiled thinly.

"Registration is actually at noon. I had a feeling you'd be late. It's good to be early anyway. You'll get a chance to see your competition."

Collin looked around. Everyone was there, looking excited. Hal and Rich were talking, and they greeted Collin when he got to them. Hal told him that Mirvin wasn't there because he had gone to a Hermetic Tournament for Hacker Elites. Apparently had just explained everything Jeremiah had just told them, so Hal quickly filled Collin in. Apparently there were several different competitions, all held at the same time, once ever several months. Dan had entered Hal, Rich and Collin into the tournament for basic Fighting. But there was also one for Espionage, Leadership, and Mechanical Mastery. There were 10 levels a Hermetic mage could achieve. The levels in part provided the structure for leadership. Wizard had apparently been at 10 for a long time. Dan was at 7. He was entering the tournament too, to go for level 8. Hal told Collin that they were actually allowed guns and things after level 6. Jeremy was at 6 himself. Going up a level had a lot of advantages. You could go on a mission level 2 and up, and the higher level you had, the more compensation you could get for them, (and of course the harder the mission.) Hal seemed particularly excited about going on a mission, Collin wasn't certain why. Apparently you got access to much cooler use of equipment and training too. Just imagine TWO squidies! Collin couldn't wait.

After Hal had told him everything he had missed from Jeremiah, he went back to talk to Rich. Collin looked around the sparring platform they were all standing on. Their appeared to be between a dozen and two dozen of them, waiting. Those weird girls Hal seemed hung up on for some reason he wouldn't explain were here too. He listened in on their conversation a little. That guy with the sword- James was giving Kristyna advice and encouragement. He also told Erica not to kill anyone. Was he serious? Erica nodded reluctantly. Collin was scared. NO! Squidy would protect him from anything! Collin put a hand in his back pocket, feeling for his ring, and the Zippo he had bought last week. Dan had told him to get one after Collin had told Dan his problem at the fight.

"You can't make the fire yet, Collin." Dan had told him. "So you should really have a source on you. Tools like that our legal for the tournament at your level. The only thing you can't have is really destructive weapons such as firearms. I get to deal with that this week in the 8 tourney. "Dan had looked thoughtful then. He added "Course the last time someone tried to take me out with a gun, all he managed to do was shoot himself a lot." Dan had laughed then, remembering nostalgically. Collin was really glad he wasn't fighting Dan this week.

Collin turned and heard Dan talking to a muscular man with short sleeves. His right arm was heavily bandaged, but it didn't look injured. Collin wondered why that was.

"So, you looking forward to meeting that creep from Green House this year? Asked the man with the bandaged arm, in a gruff voice.

"Oh heck yeah" said Dan. "He nearly killed my friend at the 7 tournament two years ago. There was no reason for that. Oh"

He turned and called for Kristyna. She came over.

"Hey Kris, be careful, there's a guy from Green house this year who is really good. He's the younger brother of a guy I'll be fighting at 8. He does weird stuff with plants I think, using them as a distraction so he can hit you with stuff using Forces. But without the plants he's nothing. So Listen- don't do anything right off the bat. Wait, defend. Once he has all his plants out, use that trick of yours. It'll burn him straight into the ground. Then you can use the powder. Ok?"

He put out a hand to shake hers and wish her luck.

She gave him a scolding look, but then gave up and flung her arms around him, jumped up and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

"Thanks Dan! You're the best!"

Dan looked slightly embarrassed and nodded. Collin could tell he was desperately thinking of something to say.

"Now don't you dare get yourself killed. I don't want to have to go to Green house avenging your death and blowing things up. It'd really cut into my post-game drinking time."

He grinned, somewhat sheepishly.

"Don't worry Dan, I'll be fine! I'll see you in the winners circle!"

Collin's eyes drifted over to James, as Kristyna ran back to her group that included herself, James, that scary girl in black? What was her name again? Collin couldn't think of it., and that other girl with all the rings and amulets. James had stiffened when Kristyna had thanked Dan. Collin wondered what that was about. Oh well. He went over to join Hal and Rich, and they talked excitedly for another minute or two, until everyone suddenly became quiet. Collin looked up, and saw Wizard stepping across the empty office area. Apparently everyone was already at wherever they were going, ready to watch the events.

"Ok everyone, are we about ready? Good, Good. Let's be off then. I'm sure you will all make Blue House (and me) very proud. Remember, I don't want any deaths this year, on either side." He looked pointedly at Dan.

Dan spread his arms wide, and looked innocent.

"Alright then everyone, let's go."

Wizard turned, and reached out an arm into the air, suddenly making a sharp motion downward. A silver split appeared in the air and a large oval suddenly opened up. Wizard motioned to everyone, then stood aside a ways. Everyone began moving towards it then.

"Oh man I hate going through the Gauntlet" Dan said, already looking sick.

"What's the Gauntlet?" Rich asked Jeremy, who had returned by their side.

It's an area that separates the material world from the spirit world. And to answer your next question, the spirit world (or what we call the "umbra") is where we are going, a specific place that the House of Hermes has constructed for the purpose of holding Tournaments. It is much easier and less dangerous to do magic there, and it is away from any place Sleepers have access to.

Rich looked confused and a little nervous. He had that weird hockey stick of his out, and was tapping it on the floor at present. "Dangerous?" he said, inquiringly.

Jeremiah frowned, and called out to Dan.

"Daniel, you DID tell these students about Paradox, did you not?"

Dan laughed sheepishly. "Heh heh, uh right right." He turned to Collin and his roommates. "It totally sucks. It's like having napalm on your chest. KABOOM." He made a gesture and little noises.

Jeremiah very pointedly did not roll his eyes. Instead he sighed.

"Never mind, we must go now. But you MUST teach them after this Dan. "

Dan nodded. "Right, course."

After everyone else had gone through, Collin, Hal, and Rich approached the portal, and Wizard closed in behind them. As Collin stepped through, he got the sensation that someone had tried to punch him hard in the stomach, and only slightly missed. All the air came out of his body, and he gasped for breath on the floor. Pins and needles covered him all over his arms and legs, and hurt to move them. After a minute the feeling went away and he opened his eyes. His breathing returned to normal pretty fast, but it was still unsettling. He looked up, Rich was standing over him.

"You ok, Collin?" He asked extending a hand. Collin took it, and pulled himself up. Collin nodded, and the both looked over at Hal, who was sitting on the ground, with Wizard talking to him calmly. Hal looked like he was wheezing awfully. Wizard waved them off when they tried to approach, and Hal kept telling them that he was fine, he just needed a breather. Collin and Rich looked at each other and shrugged. A ways off to Collin's left; Dan was bent over double, puking his guts out. After he finished he looked up at them cheerfully.

"Well, glad that's over! Time for the fun!". He rubbed his hands together and waved at Collin and Rich, wishing them luck.

Rich walked over to Jeremy to ask him a question.

"Jeremy, What was that all about? How come walking through hurt some guys more than others? And where exactly are we? The spirit world? What does that mean? I don't think I Understand. Things seem different her at all, somehow but-"

Jeremiah put up a hand. "I'm sorry Rich but there's no time to explain it all to you. You may ask Dan about it later. Come on, we need to get you registered. Everyone else is going up to their levels to get registered as well. And Wizard will shortly leave soon, as he is one of the Judges.

As Jeremy led them on to registration, Collin got a chance to really look around for the first time. They were currently in an area that looked a little like a baseball park. Hal would probably like that. Collin glanced over at him. Wizard was talking to him, and he had stood up. He was looking much better. And staring around, excitement on his face.

They were in the back of the stadium right now; there were stone walls behind them. In various places a long the wall, other doorways of sort were opening. As Collin watched, a vine popped out of the wall and grew, interweaving on itself, and finally, when it was a man sized rectangle of interwoven vine, a seam appeared in one side, and it opened. Young men and women, and a few older adults, all dressed in green cloaks, bustled through. There various other doorways too. Some burst into existence in a rainbow of light, some rose out of the ground, like a dirt tunnel, some seemed to construct themselves block by block of a weird metal that looked vaguely like iron. Many people came out. Most moved to the far wall of the area they were in, behind the main stadium, and climbed up a ladder that appeared to disappear into nothingness. It went into a ceiling that looked a lot like the starless night Collin had seen outside the windows at the Library. When Collin asked, Jeremy told him that there were actually nine levels, one for each Level tournament, all stacked on one another.

Collin nodded and looked around at the arena for the Level 2 tourney. The arena was basically a square that had been separated in the middle. On each square half, there were about twenty rows of bleachers. Every once in a while there was a large stone pillar, that supported a stone ceiling. The bleachers were filled with men and women, young and old, all of which looked excited. Some were wearing House-colored cloaks, some were not.

In the middle, was a circle about a hundred feet in diameter? It was open here, the stone ceiling ended on each side of the ring, leaving the ring open to the uh "sky". Which was really just a blanketed void. This open area apparently was where the fights were to be conducted. It was a bit raised off the ground, ring style. Above each half of the bleachers, was a balcony. Jeremy led them up a ladder that went to their half's balcony now. Here they registered. Hung in front of the balcony on each half was a Scoreboard. It showed eight names. They were Hal, Rich, Collin, Ray, Nate, Rita, John, and Marianne. Off to Collin's left as he climbed the ladder, were a row of seats. Eight were empty at the moment, the rest, were filled with judge-looking people, old men mostly.

After they finished registering, Jeremiah said, "Now be careful you guys. I'll be watching from over here. Good luck to all of you."

The three of them went to sit with the other eight, and their attention was drawn to the center ring, where a middle-aged man in White robes stood.

He spoke, and the air seemed to reverberate around him, making his voice loud and clearly heard to the several hundred of them in both sides of the stands.

"Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to the Bi-annual Order of Hermes Fighting-Mage Tournament, Level Two!"

There was a roar of applause, and even some whooping noises.

When it died down, the man continued. "I'd like to welcome our allies from the Akashic House, who are always welcome in House Hermes!" Collin noticed the direction the mane spoke towards, and it was a group of solemn faced men, all wearing modest brown robes.

"As just a reminder, there are no firearms allowed in the Level Two tournament, and killing is frowned upon. The officials will stop any match that has a clear winner. A match is over when a contestant has been killed, knocked unconscious, forced out of the ring for a ten count, or of course, if he or she gives up. Remember, this tournament is to show your fellow Houses your strength and as a way for the House leaders to gauge the strength of each branch of House Hermes! We don't want to lose anyone necessarily, but we can hardly gauge strengths unless you all try your hardest. Our opponents are not push-overs, and if we do not stay strong, humanity may lose all its wonder, not to mention, in some cases, its life! Well then, that is enough of that, good luck to everyone, and enjoy the show!"

There was a roar of approval from the audience, and then a rapid beeping sound. It was the scoreboard in front of them, though they had to watch the one on the other side to see clearly. All eight names were up, and they were all flashing on and off in random patterns, after a moment they stopped on two names.

**HAL VS. RAY **

Hal gave a great "Woot!" and stood up. Rich and Collin clapped him on the back.

"Alright man, it's all you, use the force!" said Collin. Hal grinned at him and jogged towards the ladder that would take him to the arena. After a moment, another guy got up. And followed Hal down. He was wearing dark tinted sunglasses, and had dark hair, cut bowl-style. He wore a black jacket that had an open panel in the front showing a little white. It seemed to wrap around behind him, fastening on buttons on the back. He stood up calmly, and walked purposefully towards the ladder.

Collin couldn't wait. This was gonna be great. Hal was probably the strongest of all of them.

Hal stood across from his opponent, after he had been announced. He looked like a real punk. Hiding behind those eyeglasses. This "Ray" punk looked Hal up and down and then sniffed.

"You can't beat me." He said, calmly, though there was definitely a little pride in his voice.

"HA!" Shouted Hal. Man he WAS a punk. He was gonna smash his face in.

Ray didn't react at all.

"It is clear who the winner will be, from the way we were brought up. You clearly have no reason to win this match. Nor do you have the strength required. Nor the discipline. I can tell just from looking at you. These are things that are pre-determined, decided at birth by where we grow up, and who we are. And you were obviously not meant to lead this life. You do not carry yourself with the proper air of a Hermetic Mage. It is only fitting that I defeat you, and remove a stain from our Order."

Hal fumed. Punching in his head wasn't good enough; he was going to tear the inflated thing off his shoulders.

The man in white robes shouted "Begin!" And Hal charged in straight away, covering the meters between them in seconds. Ray immediately turned side ways, spreading his feet out, and dropping into a nerdy "kung-fu" stance, like a frickin wanna-be Bruce Lee.

Hal laughed as he ran. This was gonna be easy.


	7. Hermetic Tournament 2

Part 2

As Hal barreled at the guy in the sunglasses and black jacket, he couldn't be happier. His first match, and it was against someone with a serious ego problem. ITHere wasn't another type of person Hal liked to smash more.

Hal closed distance quickly, while Ray merely stood there, in a loose sideways stance, knees bent, arms held loosely out in front of him. With those sunglasses on, Hal couldn't even tell if Ray was even looking at him.

Turns out, he was. Hal charged in straight, punching directly for Ray's head. Ray moved deftly to the left, sweeping out a hand to knock Hal past him. Hal, being no slocu either, ducked, and managed to stop, pivot, and try charging and knocking the sunglass-ed ray over. Ray leapt backwards however, easily leaping out of Hal's charge, and landing lightly on his feet. He once again fell into an easy stance, not moving a millimeter once he fell into it.

Hal was getting annoyed. He rushed in again, aiming a knocking blow to Ray's stomach. Ray knocked it aside and swept out with his foot in a low kick. Hal hopped over it easily, and on his way down, tied punching straight down onto Ray's head. Ray turned away quickly, so that Hal missed As he went through his motion and landed in a low crosuh, his fist nearly touching the ground, Ray immediately turned and kicked hard for Hal's face. Hal threw his hands up, keeping his foot behind him. He managed to block Ray's kick, but it stung his hand, and he fell back a few steps.

Ray fell into his stance again, watching, as Hal sshook his hand loose, trying to get the sting out of it.

Damn. This guy was too fast for Hal. He'd prolly crush him to bits if he could just put a fist on him, but it didn't matter. It was time to get serious.

"Alright punk! It's time to end this, you ready?"

Ray nodded. "Yes you have wasted enough of my time. I already know the winner, once we both get serious, so let's finish it now. This match no longer interests me."

Hal stared at him. He couldn't believe he was such an ass.

"Ha! You cocky bastard! You're damn right this over. It's over right now!"

Hal took out his amulet and sped at Ray. He concentrated, like he had learned for the last month. He tried to remember how it felt that last time, when he had finally made it to Wizard's office. Wizard hadn't been surprised at all. He just smiled warmly, and gave Hal his new amulet. It was made of dark smooth glass, like sea-glass. Wizard had given his old amulet away. Hal imagined how it felt, when he walked in, almost like he had no weight, like he was just gliding over the ground. He had no weight. And now, now- Ray had no weight either. One punch, and he would fly for meters.

The amulet surged in his hand and Hal shouted, stamping the ground and punching Ray straight and hard, right in the chest. Ray put his hands down, blocking. He tumbled backwards, a look of surprise on his face. His feet left the ground and he wind-milled his arms. Hal stopped watching, and laughed hysterically, his voice echoing through the stadium. He heard it quickly echoed throughout the stands beyond. It was a roar of laughter.

Hal grinned. Apparently a lot of them didn't like Ray much either. It was great to see him off balance for a change, instead of just so damn sure of himself.

Ray finally stopped, as he flung a leg out behind him, and managed not to fall over.

Ray ignored the laughter. He simply smirked and said.

"Well then, is that all you have? And to think I was slightly worried. Now I know your little trick, let's end this. Let me show you how inevitable your loss is." Ray took off his glasses, and placed them in his jacket. He had dead-looking dark eyes. Presently he closed them, and flung both arms out in front of him, and did a complicated set of hand signals. He then passed his hands over his eyes. He opened them. They were now red.

Hal laughed. "Nice trick, retard. What's next? You gonna grow a big rubber nose?"

Ray ignored him. He put his hands I front of him again. A voice in the back of Hal's head nagged at him. It was Wizard's back when he was having trouble coping from the Gauntlet.

"Don't be too sure of yourself Hal. You are good, but take no chances. If you see someone doing something you don't understand, try and stop it. Trustt me as someone who knows, preemptive strikes are most effective." Wizard had smiled then, remembering something.

Wizard was right. Hal should take this punk seriously. He exploded forward, trying to break up the hand signs. For all he knew, that crap could blow up the arena.

Too late. Ray finished, and swept his hands in a sweeping gesture and-

Hal stopped, stumbled. Everything was black. He couldn't see a damn thing. FUCK.

He turned around, looking in all directions, up, down, left, right. He spun around looking everywhere. Nothing. He closed his eyes. There was no difference. There was no light anywhere. It was all gone. What had that punk done? What was the point of making everything dark? Cusz there was no way he could see either-

Then Hal rememberd the thing with the eyes. Fuck. Did he make it so he could see somehow?

He fingered the amulet on his hand. The silver chain tfused to the smooth glass. Gravity changes wouldn't help him here. THINK Hal, THINK you big dumb idiot! What could he do?

There had to be a weakness to this. It wasn't as if that kid could spread that thing EVERYWHERE. There had to be- That's IT. He COULD use his amulet. That trick of Ray's had to be tiring. Hal 's trick was. But if he could Jump out of it, he could see how far it was. He could orient himself. He could see how to get out. Ray couldn't attack him blind that way, like a little cowardly pussy.

Hal focused on the amulet and halved his own weight. He then flung himself upward, several feet in the air. He fell back down to the earth. Shit. Nothing. He had to get out of here before-

He heard a quiet voice behind him.

"It is over" said Ray.

Hal felt a sharp pain in his head and he drifted toward unconsciousness, the world got dizzy and he saw spots. He hit the hard floor, and managed to recover quickly, He staggered off in a random direction trying to find his way out of the darkness.

He stopped. Wait, something was-

"You rely too much on your trinkets" said a voice, to his left and behind him. He whirled towards the sound. His amulet. That bastard had his-

"You give that back to me yoou pussy coward! Why don't you fight me out in the light like a MAN? You little girl!"

There was a loud crashing sound, and then the tinkling sound of broken glass.

Hal froze, his stomach sickening. His amulet. He had broken his amulet. He had worked for a month to get that.

"Oh that is IT. YOU FUCKING PUSSY, NOT EVEN THE DARK WILL HIDE YOU NOW YOU SKULKING COWARD!"

Hal bellowed and ran straight at the sound of the breaking Glass. He dropped his shoulder and charged, ready to plow into anything, anything at all to ruin this guy, to tear his freaking guts out of his-

There was a scuffling footsteps, and then a CRACK on Hal's head, Pain and then nothing.

Collin was getting impatient. And he sensed the rest of the arena was too. He spotted a people in the crowd on the other side of the arena wearing black robes. They looked perfectly calm. Collin was getting nervous. There was something about that Ray guy, that wasn't quite right.

Hal turned to look at Rich. He looked concerned. He was clutching his hockey stick in one hand, and his knuckles were turning white. It looked like he was going to break the thing. "Hey man, relax. I'm sure Hal hasn't under control. He's prolly playing catch with that other guy's head right now."

Rich looked at him. His face was tense. It was clearly a struggle, but he relaxed a little.

He smiled, chuckling lightly. "Yeah man, I guess your right."

Collin returned his attention to the Big Black sphere in the middle of the arena. It covered practically the whole thing. It looked like someone had spilled ink in large amounts down there. Collin couldn't see anything. It was so-

Suddenly it disappeared.

Instantly, Collin and Rich were on their feet.

Collin looked down at the scene below them. Shit.

Hal was on the ground passed out. Ray was calmly walking away from him, his eyeglasses still on, not a hair out of place, his jacket in the same position he went in.

Collin was speechless. Rich sat back down, stunned.

There was a roar from the crowd, and it was impossible to tell whether it was positive or not. Some of it probably was. Suddenly Collin felt a wave of fear. Were they way over their heads here?

Collin had trouble focusing on the next match, though Jeremy told him that he should, since he could fight against one of them eventually. Jeremiah didn't add "IF" Collin made it. Hal was probably the best of all of them, and that Ray kid had beaten him without breaking a sweat. How did he make all that darkness/ What had happened in there?

If Jeremiah knew, he wasn't telling Collin. Jeremy had gone down to help bring Hal to the med wind underneath the stadium, and had assured Collin and Rich that Hal would be fine, just a mild concussion apparently. Collin sensed something in his peripheral vision and turned.

Gah! It was Jeremiah. Man that due was hard to look at when the lights from around the stadium were reflecting off him. All that white. It was amazing his angel prostitutes ever approached him.

Collin giggled. It never got old, EVER.

Jeremy was pointing with his pimp-cane at the arena. Oh right.

Collin watched, feeling mostly bored, but his nervousness gradually grew. The people at this tournament were GOOD, really good. The match at the arena was Rita versus Marianne. That's what the giant score-board said anyway. Marianne apparently did something with Wind. Jeremy told him that in Hermes they called her a "weather witch" since she was obviously changing the force of weather. Her foci was a giant fan. Unnaturally powerful gusts came from it Jeremy had told him during the time between matches that Marianne probably uses the fan to start the wind, and then increases the weather condition from that into great gusts to knock her opponents over. Sort of like the way Collin controlled and made fire grow. She could even fly a little, it was scary. Collin briefly wondered if she had wings. Angel maybe? He looked back at Jeremiah, he was into the fight. Hmmm, perhaps a little TOO interested in this Marianne girl.

The other one, Rita, had scrolls that made knives come from thin air. She danced and jumped around the arena, avoiding gusts and throwing knives conjured from thin air. It was over pretty fast though. Marianne kept reflecting Rita's daggers back at her.

After Marianne had been declared the winner and Rita was taken off the field., the scoreboard with all the names on it started blinking again. Collin tried not to show how nervous he was, what if he got someone like Ray? What if-

The noises stopped. Collin looked up. The names were gone now, and a simple sentence replaced them.

RICH VERSUS NATE.

Collin looked over at Rich. Rich stood up, and lifted his hockey stick so it rested on his shoulder. He turned and locked eyes with collin.

"I won't lose." He said. But Collin could tell he was shaken after Hal. Neither of them would say that out loud though. They both knew the other was thinking it.

"And I'm expecting that you don't either."

Collin sniffed. "Squidy does NOT lose." He said, making his voice sound offended

Rich grinned, and his body seemed to relax a little. "Good, it's settled then. Well, I'll see you after."

And with that, he turned and climbed back down the ladder from the bleachers into the arena.


	8. Hermetic Tournament 3

**Collin Versus Jon **

Collin tried to hide how nervous he felt, as he stepped off the ladder and turned to Rich.

"Oh, Hi Rich" Collin said, feeling awkward. "I uh, I'm sorry about-"

Rich waved him off. "Yeah it sucks that I lost. Nate is a good man though, and I will learn a lot from him. That's what's important."

Rich turned to face Collin directly, giving Collin the feeling that he was going to shoot laser beams into his head. Collin imagined red beams of light coming out of Rich's eyes, and Collin dodging out of the way, launching a thousand squidies to ward off Rich's eye-beam attack. Collin giggled.

Collin's giggling turned into nervous laughter when he saw Rich staring at him even MORE intensely, if that were possible. He had an eyebrow raised.

"Collin. Don't worry about your next fight. It will be fine if you calm your head, think clearly, and use everything Dan taught you."

Collin decided to just nod, and run off to the arena.

When he got there, his opponent was already there. He was a sight to behold. Collin felt his gut in his throat. He was about 6 feet tall, and thin. He had brown hair, and wore sunglasses. His nose looked slightly misshapen; it looked a little too flat.

Besides that Collin could tell almost nothing about his opponent, because he was dressed from head to toe in a long black trench coat. The collar on the coat went all the way up to his nose. Half his nose, his cheeks, and his ears were the only bare skin Collin could see. The coat and the glasses hid everything else. He had deep sleeves that covered his hands completely, and his coat went all the way down to inches off the ground, just enough to reveal black boots. He had simply-cut brown hair, and just stood there in the middle of the ring, as if he had just grown there, as if he were a statue that someone had placed in that position. He was rigid as a board, and didn't move an inch. Collin would bet a good amount of money that this kid hadn't blinked in YEARS. It was impossible to tell though, because of those silver-black sun-glasses that glinted the stadium lighting back into Collin's eyes.

The old bearded man sitting on the chair to Collin's right suddenly stood up. When he spoke, his words boomed in the air, it had to be magic-enhanced, Collin felt like that voice would carry for miles.

"Ladies and Gentleman, I now bring you Match Four! On my right, from the Order of Hermes, Blue House… COLLIN!

There was a roar of applause, and Collin squinted up into the balcony. He could see Rich up there, and Jeremiah and, hey look it was Dan. And who else… Hal! Then he was ok, thank god. He was certainly on his feet and yelling hard enough.

Collin felt a sudden surge of pride. No matter what happened, he was here, and people were rooting for him. He would just have to make sure he did them all proud.

"And to my left, from the Hermetic Order, in Green house…JON!"

There was more applause, just as deafening as Collin's had been.

"I present to you, The Biannual Hermetic Tournament, Match 4!"

"BEGIN!"

Collin felt suddenly queasy and nervous, looking at the Goth wannabe in front of him. What was he supposed to do now? Jon wasn't moving an inch, he hadn't since Collin had reached the arena.

Collin tried to think clearly, but he felt way too nervous. _Well, I guess I better take out my lighter and ring _, Collin thought. He began to do just that, but then stopped. Rich's words came back to him.

No, he had to be smart. He had to wait until the last second, and then completely end this match with the first blow, in Spectacular Squidy fashion. But first- he had to find out what this Jon guy could do. Collin couldn't take any chances here. After all, he was a one trick pony. Or a one trick Squidy, as the case may be.

Collin wasn't much of a fist fighter, but he knew how. And it was the only way to find out what this guy could do.

He flung himself forward at the unmoving trench-coated figure in front of him. That was one high collar, it almost reached his sunglasses.

When Collin got in range, he threw a jab straight on, right towards Jon's misshapen nose. Jon turned his head slightly, but other than that didn't move an inch. Collin's fist moved towards Jon's face, but as he hit him, something felt wrong. Jon's face felt like jelly; like play-do. His fist moved slow as it hit Jon, and his face only reverberated slightly. Collin's fist actually started sticking there once he had finished the motion of the blow.

What the hell? What WAS this guy?

Collin jumped back, tearing his hand free, appalled.

And he STILL had barely moved an inch?

"What ARE you? A Jello-man?"

Finally, Jon responded. He narrowed his eyes. "You are holding something back. Coming at me normally is pointless. Show me what you are holding back, Now."

Collin's eyes widened. He had just been thinking he would have to use squidy. This guy couldn't read minds, COULD he? A mind-reading Jello-man? No. He had just guessed that Collin was trying to find out what he could do first.

He hadn't learned much in his little assault, but it hadn't been completely useless either. Obviously whatever Jello-Man was doing had something to do with his skin. Collin grinned.

Not even tough skin could stop fire.

"Alrighty then Sticky-Man, I agree, let's end your reign of gooey terror."

Collin jumped forward again, reaching into his back pocket with both hands. He slipped the ring on his right finger, and picked up the lighter with his left. When he was within feet of Jon, he swung both hands to the front simultaneously. He held his left hand farther out, flipping the Zippo open, and lighting it. His ring hand pulsed with energy, expanding the fire immediately into squidy, its long tentacles reaching out instantly for Jon.

"Go Squidy!" Collin shouted, bringing his run to a halt, and concentrated on capturing Jon.

Clearly he had caught Jon with his pants down. His eyes widened, and he leapt backwards. It wasn't faster than normal human speed though. He landed and then quickly ducked under three of the tentacles whipping out to grab him, but Collin had the other three flank. One went under, and two to came from the sides. Jon then leapt to the right, completely out of range of five of the tendrils. He managed to leap over the sixth one, but he was still close.

Collin saw this, and immediately collapsed the other 5 offshoots of flame, and put all his energy into the one on the right, making it swell with strength as it crackled and burned. It whipped up and caught the leaping Jon on the shoulder, immediately catching his sleeve on fire.

Collin whooped in exultation and immediately dropped squidy. He focused his ring on the fire on Jon's sleeve, and silently commanded it to grow, GROW! Within seconds after Jon landed, the small fire on his sleeve had spread all down the front of his jacket in a dance of flame. Collin giggled in delight. It was like squidy had given birth, to lots of little squidies.

Jon cried in pain and surprise, and ripped at the buttons to his trench coat, tearing it away and flinging it from his body. He was breathing heavy now, and his hair was singed. Collin gaped at Jon's now coatless figure.

He wore a loose white shirt that revealed a shocking fact about Jon. There were scars all over his body. It looked like someone, or an ARMY of someones, had hit Jon repeatedly with hammers. The scars were deep with badly healed-over skin, and the fracture wounds were EVERYWHERE. His face had many more scars on it than Collin had seen before as well. But they were all old; Collin didn't think he had received those in this battle.

No wonder he wore a trench coat. Wow. Just wow. What has he been doing, playing baseball with his head?

Jon fell to one knee, heaving. He was swatting hands at his face as if trying to bat down invisible flames. But they were all out now.

Wait- invisible flames, that's it! Collin's gaze fell behind Jon, to the trench coat behind him, still ablaze. He reached out his hand and concentrated. He focused on the flame, closed his eyes, tried to feel the heat, the fabric of the trench coat slowly being converted into energy as fuel, as food for the flames, dancing along the surface.

Grow, he whispered under his breath to the flames behind Jon. He opened his eyes. A single flame grew, flickering, towards Jon. Jon appeared to have calmed down now, and had himself under control. He was looking at Collin, confused.

Suddenly he glanced behind him, and saw the flame. He yelled in alarm, and jumped up in the air, falling towards the coat, a foot stamping down.

What is he doing? Thought Collin. Now I can just expand the flames and cover him after he-

With a loud CRASH, Jon landed on the hard stone floor. The stone broke underneath him, and the flames instantly died, being cut from their air source. He leapt up lightly from the little pit he had made in the floor, and landed just as lightly a few feet away.

He turned and addressed Collin. "I must admit, that was impressive. Everything you did showed real innovation and thinking ahead." He paused. "However, you cannot win this contest. Give up, and you will leave without injury."

How could he be so cocky, right after almost getting burnt to ashes? Right after looking so unnerved, he was now as cool as ice. Collin shook his head. What a freak. He laughed and ran at Jon again, flipping open his Zippo and creating Squidy once more, making it reach for Jon.

The ensuing skirmish lasted a few minutes, as Jon would rush forward to threaten Collin, and Collin would swing Squidy around to swat at him, only to have Jon leap away. Clearly Jon was not trying to actually hit Colin, only wear him out. Collin knew that after he lost the ability to control squidy, there would be nothing between himself and Jon. And Collin had seen what Jon had done to the floor. And punching him was more useless than wailing on marshmallows.

After a while Collin stopped, trying to catch his breath. This was not good. He was getting tired.

Jon spoke once again to Collin, during a lull in the fight.

"You should not be in this tournament. Your skills would be better suited for the Espionage division of Hermes. I can tell you have a keen mind, but little skill for combat. We must each serve Hermes the best way we can, without ego." He paused once more, and knelt down and picked something up off the ground. His sunglasses had fallen off. Collin had barely noticed. He rose up, putting the glasses back on with a flick of his wrist.

"This is your last chance, give up. I do not wish to hurt a member of Hermes needlessly."

Collin laughed at him again and ran forward. This time Jon came in, dodging squidy flawlessly, maneuvering under a tentacle and rising up to smash a fist directly into Collin's nose. Collin screamed in pain and then all went black.

Collin woke up to pain. His face felt like it had been bludgeoned with a pipe. He opened his eyes, moaning. There was a man in a simple white tunic above him, looking down. He had a kind face.

"Try not to move too much, young one. You have several fractures in your face. I can heal you, but you mustn't move for a while. Much of the energy from the healing must come from you."

The man took out a metal cross and began waving it over Collin's head, muttering something in a language Collin couldn't understand. He tried not to shiver; the pain in his face was intense.

Suddenly his whole body seized, as if gripped by something invisible, and there was a strong, warm feeling in his head. The pain eased, and Collin once again fell unconscious.

When he awoke again, there was a small crowd to greet him. He sat up immediately, realizing that he felt fine. It was amazing. It was like… magic. Collin resisted the urge to giggle giddily. He felt his face, good as new. He sighed in relief, and looked around the room.

He was in what looked like a small hospital room, with simple furnishings. He lay on a simple white cot. And sitting around him in various corners of the room were, Hal, Rich, Jeremiah, and Dan, all talking over him.

"Hey, can I join the conversation?" Collin asked, innocuously.

After things had died down again, and Collin had shaken everyone's hand, Rich turned to Jeremiah.

"Well? You promised."

Jeremiah sighed.

Collin looked around the room, confused.

. Hal pointed to Jeremiah. "This punk said he'd explain what happened during our matches. What our opponents did to us."

Jeremiah nodded. "Very well. You all fought very well, so you deserve to know."

Dan walked over to Collin and put a hand on his shoulder. "Especially you man, that was a good fight. You did really awesome, really. Your opponent had quite a trick. Are you sure you're ok? It must've felt like he hit you with a hammer".

Collin nodded, though he still felt a little weak, and stunned about his match. How had he lost so badly? Was what Jon had said to him true? Maybe he wasn't meant to be a fighter.

But Collin decided not to voice any of this. He would ask Dan about the Espionage tournament later. Instead he said, "What WAS that? Why did my punches stick to his face? How did he hit me so hard?"

Dan turned and looked at Jeremiah. Jeremiah immediately assumed lecture mode and began. "Your opponent was Jon, from Green House. Judging by the scars on his body, he has spent the last few months studying the force known as impulse. He has apparently learned to change the duration of any impact being made on him, or any he makes on other objects or… persons." He broke off awkwardly, but in a methodical manner, as if he had planned to sound awkward on purpose.

"By increasing the time of impact, he can decrease any force levied against him to virtually nothing. And by decreasing the time of impact, he can increase the force of his blows exponentially." Jeremiah finished, looking around the room expectantly. All he got were blank stares.

Hal turned to Dan. "Yo Dan- Translate that. In ENGLISH."

Dan nodded. "Any of you ever drop a watermelon or something out the window like three stories up?" Jeremiah's eyes widened

Collin nodded and laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome."

"What happens?" Asked Dan.

"Watermelon juice" said Collin, laughing as he remembered.

Dan nodded sagely. Jeremiah looked at Dan like he had just turned into a pancake.

"Now, suppose you instead dropped the same watermelon into a deep pool, what do you think would happen?"

Rich spoke up. "It would fall through the water, intact."

"Why do you think that is?" Dan asked.

Rich's face suddenly showed understanding.

"I see. All the force from the watermelon's fall has to be absorbed by the watermelon in a fraction of a second when it hits cement. But when it falls into water, the time of the impact with the water is increased to seconds, so it doesn't damage it as much."

Dan nodded. "So when Jon decreased the time of his fist hitting you, your face had to absorb all the impact at once. But when you hit him, it was probably like punching water, right?" Collin nodded. "See? That's because all the force from your hand was hitting his face only slowly, over a few seconds."

"That sneaky bastard," said Collin.

"What about me? What did that punk Ray do?" Hal demanded.

Jeremiah spoke up again, this time clearly trying to explain things more simply. "He used quintessence to block out all visible light in a small area. Then he changed his eyes to pick up infra-red. So he could see you by the heat your body gave off, whereas you couldn't see anything."

"That sneaky BASTARD" shouted Hal, kicking his chair across the room.

"I think I sense a pattern" Dan said, mildly.

"And me?" asked Rich, calmly.

Jeremiah smiled sympathetically. "Nate was never in the place where you tried to hit him. He bent light around him, making it look like he was in a different place than he was."

Rich looked confused. "Ok, but how did he hit me then, if the whole time it was just a bunch of light?"

"He can change the distance between himself and his image. After he had seen you punch through his image, he changed it so it corresponded more closely with his body. That way he could punch you back without giving anything away."

Rich shook his head, impressed.

Collin spoke up. "Wait, I'm confused, I heard Nate said that he would tell you all that after the matches... Wait… what time is it? How much did I miss?"

"The Level Two Hermetic Tournament is over Collin," Jeremiah said. He then told Collin about the other matches. After Collin had been knocked out, Jon had faced Marianne, the weather chick with the wind. Apparently Jon had tried stamping the ground and increasing the duration of impact, making himself stick to the ground despite the gusts that were blowing him around the room. In the end it wasn't enough though. She caught him off guard eventually, and Jon had spun into a pillar.

Then Nate faced Ray. Since Ray could use a rote called "Dark Sight", which changed his vision to infra-red, Nate's trick was useless. It ended quickly. That's why Nate didn't tell Rich what had happened.

And then it had been Mari versus Ray. According to Jeremiah, she put up quite a fight blowing gusts all across the ring, but eventually fell to Ray inside the same big black sphere he used on Hal.

Jeremiah noticed their sullen faces, and tried to soothe them. "You have nothing to be ashamed of, any of you. All your opponents were very talented, and many have studied for years, whereas you all awakened only a month ago. Especially you, Hal. Ray could very easily win the Level Three tournament. "

Hal didn't seem much relieved by this.

"How do you know all this, Jeremy? I mean how do you know what everyone was really doing?"

"When you study Prime- the study of the substance matter is made of- as much as I have, you can start understanding how other people change reality."

Dan stood up. He glanced at a wrist watch. "Well folks, I'm going to go watch Erica's match now. You wanna come?" He grinned.

Collin was psyched. Apparently there were three members of House Blue in the finals in other tournaments- Erica, Kristyna, and Dan. Blue House had lost three times today in the first round, and Collin was looking forward to seeing them finally kick some asses.


	9. Hermetic Tournament final

Long Live The Blue 

Part 5

Collin watched from the balcony as Erica stared down her opponent. This was the Level 6 Hermetic Bi-Annual Tournament Finals, and it looked like it was pretty exciting so far.

Erica hadn't done anything yet. Collin had forgotten her opponent's name, but he wore a green cloak and so was probably in Green House. They had arrived there late, after the introductions. The four of them, Collin, Rich, Hal, and Dan had sat at the bottom row of the bleachers, right beside a stone pillar. It was close enough to the ring where they could almost hear what the combatants were saying. Up until a moment ago Erica and her opponent had been arguing about something. The guy facing Erica was tall, with shortish black hair that fell often into his eyes and he held a weapon in his hands that looked like a long pole with a blade on the end. He had said something about hating to fight women, then had said something about "heaven forgive me, for I gave it my oath that I would not lose here". This seemed kind of a stupid thing to promise heaven, or anyone, but then again, he was new.

After that the man had rushed forward and began swinging at Erica. At first, Collin thought he was just really bad. It looked like he kept missing, over and over again. But after a minute or two, Collin realized something weird was going on. Erica hadn't moved an inch, Collin was certain of that. But she WAS doing SOMETHING. Just by looking at her face Collin knew that much. It looked like she was crapping her pants or something, the way she was clenching her teeth.

The other tall guy would run at her in a blur, way faster even than Rich, and swing for Erica's mid-section. But the blade would approach Erica, and then suddenly it would be on the other side of her, a few feet away, with her utterly unharmed. Collin had heard Dan talking about a different Sphere of magic other than the one Collin knew a little about- Forces. The sphere was called Correspondence, and Erica must be using it here. She was messing up the way space in front of her corresponded. So when that guy swung his weapon at her, the space right in front of Erica was linked to a space to her side, instead of to the space she was in. So he could obviously never hit her doing what he had done. Hadn't he figured that out yet?

After a minute when the guy stopped to catch his breath Erica seemed to relax, and took a leap backwards, landing lightly on her feet. When she spoke, her voice came out strong and clear. This was probably so that most people in the stadium would hear.

"If that is all you can do, then you are a dead man. Goodbye."

With that she reached into the folds of her baggy shirt and cloak, and threw several small somethings, straight at her opponent. She then stepped back and waited. Her opponent instantly flashed out of the way, moving like a whisk of air.

Collin rubbed his eyes as he tried to find where the knives went. His eyes moved backtowards Erica. She clearly thrown knives. Two of them. But now they were moving no faster than walking speed. They were only halfway between Erica and her opponent. Their speed must've slowed down monstrously after she threw them. They never had a prayer of hitting the tall guy Erica was fighting. What was going on?

The man in the ring blinked a few times. Then he laughed in a way that echoed throughout the arena. He seemed relieved and cocky, at the same time.

"Ha! You thought that would hit me? I'm faster than-"

Erica cut him off. "No, but I'm working on that."

With that, she reached into her cloak again, and threw four more knives, two in each hand. Only she threw them away from her and up, over her head, so they sailed up towards the balcony. Collin blinked in surprise. What was she trying to do, kill people in the audience out of spite? Someone should.-

Abruptly the knives disappeared. They reappeared over her opponent's head, traveling in the same speed and angle, only this time reversed and shooting diagonally down towards the man's face.

He gaped in horror, and then zipped out of the way. Almost too late, he turned to see that he had nearly run head first into the slow moving knives from before. Instantly, two of the four overhead seemed to come to life, snaking off course directly towards the now-leaping man in green. Two of the knives shot under his dodging leap, but when he landed, the other two of the set were still up there, above his head. They had slowed while the other two flew. The moment he landed though, they went from walking speed to sprinting-speed shooting directly for his eyes. He rolled out of the way, but one caught him in the leg, piercing him below the knee. He cried out, but kept moving.

While all this was happening, Collin was only half watching him, he had his main vision on Erica. She now had two jewel encrusted daggers in her hand, both glowing gold at the ends. One was pointed at the cluster of four, now down to three as one was sitting in the man's leg. The other was pointed at the other original group of two. They were moving forward still, now at a crawl. She had swung her left arm in an arc, the point of the dagger in her hand directing the two knives before they hit the ground. They swooped up, missing the ground and flying into the air, like fighter jets. That is when she pointed the left dagger at the other set still in the air and then directed that new group. When one of the daggers hit, she directed the remaining one up into the air where the other two were waiting. Then she directed the group of three. They maneuvered up and around, following Erica's point, hurtling towards the man on the ground.

Meanwhile the now-wounded man from Green House had his own problems. The three knives that he had dodged immediately flew back around at him, at a slow speed, right after they missed him. He managed to bat down all three in a hastily swung arc from his weapon. It moved so fast, it looked like a flash of light.

Almost at that exact instant, two things happened. One- the original set of slow-moving 2 knives sped to intercept him, causing the swordsman to whirl to face them. Second, Erica ran towards the man's undefended back, her left held in the air clutching the dagger with the glowing tip, directing the last set of knives in the air, and her right holding the gold dagger back over her shoulder, in preparation to throw it.

Having just recovered from his blow against the other group of three, the man leapt backwards at the last second, just barely noticing the swooping daggers in time. At that exact moment, Erica immediately threw a dagger dead-on towards the man's back. As it was about touching the man's back, it suddenly stopped.

It was lilke a light switch turning on. One moment there was nothing there, the next, a bearded man in white, sitting on his chair and all, appeared right behind the man in green. In his left hand, he held the jeweled dagger, in his right, he held the man in green, as he slumped over the man's lap, panting heavily.

There was a lull in the crowd, as they all gaped at what had just in transpired. Then everyone around Collin, in Blue House, were on their feet, screaming in exultation.

After a minute, when the jubilation had died down, and members of Green house had taken the Erica's opponent from the Judge, he spoke.

He sighed. "I thought I told you no killing, Erica." He said, exasperated.

Erica was already walking away from him. "Do you really want to fight beside someone as weak as that?" was all she said. And with that she stepped off the ring.

After that, they had climbed down the peculiar ladder that seemed to drop down directly into blackness, and appeared above another arena, identical to all the rest.

Kristyna was already fighting there, in the level five tourney. She had her brown hair bound in her usual two pony tails at each side of her head. At the moment Collin spotted her, She appeared to be cornered. The man she was fighting had filled the entire arena with plants. They moved and pawed at Kristyna whenever she moved close. She had only a small island to herself now. Abruptly the man disappeared into the foliage, so Collin could no longer see him. Instantly Kristyna reached into the big pouches on her hips and pulled out dough. She pulled it all around her in a tight circle, and it turned hard, just as Hal had described to Collin.

A dozen small objects abruptly flew out of a spot in the artificial forest in the ring, way off to Kristyna's left. They impacted with the fortress Kristyna had made, going off with a machine-gun flurry of tiny explosions, like firecrackers.

As soon as they all exploded, the wall turned to dough again and flopped down at Kristyna's feet. What she just did couldn't be easy. Collin thought back to during his fight, and how hard it had been to keep bringing up squidy. It felt like everytime he did, he had just run a mile at a sprint. Kristyna was breathing hard now. Obviously this wasn't the first time she had blocked that attack.

A blonde haired man wearing the robes of Blue House over to Collin's left suddenly stood up and yelled. "Kristyna, Don't Worry, you can do it! Come on!"

Kristyna looked over at him and smiled. She seemed to whisper something under her breath. It looked like she said "watch this".

She turned back to the matter at hand. Though she was breathing hard now, she calmly scanned the expanse of concealing plants in front of her. Her eyes moved sharply to a spot off to her left. Was the underbrush moving there? Had she seen something?

She reached into her pouch and chucked something fist sized at the area. What was that? It was roughly round and brown and-

Suddenly Kristyna did the last thing Collin expected her to do.

She winked, right at the spot she had just thrown that thing, whatever it was. Collin noticed something shimmer in the air above the still moving object. Was that water?

Collin heard Dan, who was next to him, say something under his breath- "boom".

Then came one of the loudest sounds Collin had ever heard in his life. It shook his jaw with the force of it, and the entire arena seemed to rumble. It sounded like a jet engine firing up. The area where Kristyna had just winked at erupted in light and fire, the explosion tearing plants up in the air, burning. A man flew out of the spot, catapulting through the air and landing hard on the forested ground. He was on fire, and he was a little charred.

Quickly the judges put him out, and announced Kristyna's victory.

Collin, Rich, and Hal all turned to Dan, wide-eyed.

"That's the way you do it, Kris" he said, smiling.

He laughed when he saw the guys looking at him. "That was the same trick you heard Erica do a few weeks ago when she fought James, the boy over there rushing Erica on the stage. She thought of it all by herself, I didn't even teach it to her. That fist sized thing she threw at her opponent from Orange house was sodium. When she winked, she created a small amount of water around the sodium. The two don't get along too well, as you can see. Welp, if you'll excuse me, I have a score to settle."

And with that, Dan grinned at them and walked back to the ladder where he climbed up.

Collin and the guys had nothing to do but follow. They went up 3 levels to the Level 8 tournament. The guys took up their spot again, in seats right in front of the ring, so they could hear what was going on.

After the fight was announced, Dan stepped onto the ring, looking casual.

His opponent was a bald man, with a blonde goatee who looked like he was in his thirties.

Dan addressed him. "You hurt my friend last year."

The bald man laughed. "What, that freak from Blue House? With the swords? Ha he was a weakling. I would have killed him if the judges hadn't intervened. This is a tournament you know. If you don't fight hard, you'll just get wacked by the technocrats."

Dan shrugged. "Sure, but you hurt him after he was already beaten. Just figured you should know that I think it was a dumb thing for you to do." Dan still had his hands in his pockets. He looked more like he was taking a stroll in the park than fighting in a ridiculously high ranking tournament. Collin was suddenly afraid for him.

The bald man grinned. He pulled a tuning fork out of his pocket with a flourish. "This is my weapon. Impressive, isn't it?"

Dan shrugged. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a hip flask, non-chalantly.

The bald man frowned. "Hmm. Are you going to use that as an augmentation, for fire perhaps?"

Dan looked at him like he was crazy. "Heck no. Why would I do that?" And with that he took a long swig from it.

The bald man stared at him and then his face became angry. He wacked the tuning fork off the sole of his boot, and held it in front of him pointed at Dan.

Dan suddenly stopped drinking and looked sick. He snapped his fingers, and disappeared. The man laughed as he spun around to find Dan's knew location. "Ha, running away huh? I change the frequency of the sound waves from the fork after I hit it. It goes directly into your inner ear, putting off your balance."

"Neat" said Dan, taking another swig from his hip flask. He then knelt to place it on the ground next to him. And stood up. "Ok, let's end-"

The man got angry again. He hit the fork on his boot again, and put to the ground sharply, his face contorting with effort.

Suddenly the ground split at his feet, moving outwards towards Dan, splitting and spreading, cracking up the ground and sending pieces of the floor into the wide hole. Dan yawned and snapped his fingers again. He disappeared right as the crack got to him.

He appeared several feet away, clear of the cracks in the ground. Dan's hip flask had fallen over in the miniature earth quake, and liquid was pouring out of it.

Uh oh, Collin thought. He knocked over Dan's booze. Not good. For him.

"Stop moving around, you coward! You're just as inept as your stupid friend, and the rest of your worthless house!"

"You're an arrogant jackass." Dan snapped at him, from his new position. He then composed himself, and dusted off the debris and rock dust that had hit him before. He relaxed and addressed his opponent a final time.

"I'm sorry, but you are clearly a bad leader. You encourage the weak to become stronger. Not hurt them for our own ego. Not kill them. I'm afraid I can't let you pass to level eight. It would be dangerous for Hermes."

The man grew angry once more, and lifted his hand to strike his fork once more.

But this time Dan reached into his pocket and flung several small objects directly at the bald guy. They stuck to the guys shirt. What were those things?

"What the hell are you-" the bald man started.

Dan made a sign in the air in front of him, and then there were 5 Dans, in a rough circle around the man with the tuning fork. They raised their hands in tandem, and blistering fire flew out of them engulfing the man in an inferno of flame. Collin raised his hands, the heat was so strong he could feel it from here, as if it were right in front of him. He noticed the pillar off to his left, the one that supported the balcony over his head was glowing bright white, and the fire that blew out into the audience was blocked and dissipated.

Collin squinted against the bright orange cloud of flame, trying to see what was going on. He could barely make out the man in the middle of the fire. He had his hands raised, and they were glowing white. A nimbus was surrounding him, as if he were staving off the flames. He gasped with effort, and abruptly his hands dropped, the flames were too much. He screamed in agony as he fell over, the fire burning his flesh and sending it up into the air as smoke.

The flames winked out, and a medical team rushed onto the ring.

Dan winked back into one person again, and calmly walked over to get his hip flask, slipping it into his cloak. He walked back to where his opponent was still smoking, the medical team working over him. He was still alive- his force shield had only failed at the last moment.

Collin saw Dan's lips move in a whisper.

"Don't mess with my friends" was what he had said.


	10. New Friends and Chameleons

Expanding the Family 

Part 1

Rich opened his eyes. He looked at the clock. 10 A.M. Saturday again. Time to get down to the Library for his lesson with Dan. It had been a good week.

The sting from losing in last Saturday's tournament had already worn off, to be replaced by a slight buzz of excitement. After seeing Dan do that trick with the fire, and all the other tricks people had used during the tournament, Rich was ready to get a lot better. Though he could make himself a lot faster with the words of power, clearly there were PLENTY of other things he could do with forces. He was definitely still on the bottom of the pile as far as strength went. But that was fine. There was so much more to learn.

All he had to do to be convinced of that was to remember Erica's fight. She had moved those knives in midair, as if they were just another part of her arm!

Suddenly Rich had a thought. That thing that Dan's opponent had used at the tournament- when he had tried to block the fire inferno thing Dan had used- maybe Rich could learn that. He could block fire, or maybe other stuff! That would be cool. After all, increasing his own kinetic energy and affecting the kinetic energy of other objects couldn't be too far removed from one another. Either Dan's fire, or Erica's knife movement, or that shield thingy; Rich was determined to get Dan to teach him how to do one of them.

He took a shower and prepared himself for the day while thinking about the possibilities. Then he decided to go downstairs and have some breakfast.

As Rich descended the stairs, he noticed that Hal and Collin were sitting on the couch in the living room. Even from here, Rich could tell that Hal looked haggard. He had been constantly bitching about last week's tournament, and what a 'punk' Ray was. And whenever he wasn't complaining about that, he was complaining about how his hockey had 'gotten stupid'.

Rich on the other hand was happy with his week. His tournament match had been the least traumatic of the three. He had actually made friends with his opponent- Nate. He even talked to him on the phone a few times. He had done pretty well on his Criminal Justice exam, and his other classes had been O.K. too. Not bad for a free education. It was good to know that SOMETHING good had come from his godforsaken foster parents.

Rich had been given up for adoption at birth. He then bounced around a foster family or two, but the ones he finally ended up with were spawned directly from hell. They'd put on masks of angels for a few days during the trial period, and immediately dropped it afterwards. They had been vicious parents.

After he was hit in the head with a wine-glass, he finally got a break. It came in the form of his foster Aunt. Before that she had only suspected the abuse, with belts, fists, and other various objects. When she had found him on the floor in the kitchen unconscious one day, bleeding from the head, she had immediately defied her sister and taken him to the hospital. Once he was there, it was obvious to the doctor's what was going on, even though, or perhaps BECAUSE his aunt had been a bit nervous and recalcitrant. The bruises on his arms and legs spoke volumes.

After that, an outside agency had sued the State for Incompetence on his behalf. Apparently a worker in the department handling his case had failed to do a background check on his family. As a result, he had been awarded damages provided that he used them only for a College Education.

When he had entered the care of those parents he had been 5 years old. He left at age 7. It had been 2 years in hell. Those 2 years were a lesson in power Rich would not soon forget. His criminal justice education combined with his new abilities should keep that from ever happening to Rich or his friends ever again.

He had spent all of his life from then up until college shifting from one home to another. He never stayed in place for more than a few months, and he had no chance of meeting his real parents either, since his records had been lost in a fire at the hospital shortly after his birth.

He had never had friends, never had anyone he could rely on, anything like family. Now that he had someone like that- his roommates- Hal, and Collin, he had to make sure that they all got stronger. Over the years they started to get close knit. And Rich's experiences in the last few months made it even more so. He had to get them to not focus on the past. The past is gone now. Nothing more than smoke. All there was to do now was protect the present.

Rich finished walking down the stairs, shaking himself from his reverie.

"Hey guys, what's going on? I'm going to head over to the Library in a minute or two. I've got some ideas about training we can get from Dan, next time we go to the tournament, _no one _will be able to touch us…" Rich trailed off suggestively, hoping Hal would make the right connections. He was obviously still angry that an idiot like Ray could be stronger than him. And Rich was partly inclined to agree. Cruel people didn't deserve to have power.

But right now Hal didn't seem interested in that.

"Dude Rich, come over here, you gotta see this."

Rich poked his head over the couch behind Collin and Hal, and read the letter they had in their hands.

Rich stood there, shocked.

They were getting a new roommate.

Apparently Derek had been missing long enough for them to feel justified in removing him from the apartment. There were a lot of students on the waiting list for housing, so they gave Rich and his roommates' one of them.

"Oh. Wow. " Rich said, stunned.

Rich looked up from the letter, and shared a glance with Hal and Collin.

"We can't tell him." Said Rich, hoping what he meant was obvious.

"You mean about you secretly wearing lingerie?" Collin chirped in, trying to look helpful.

Rich glared at him. "Shut up, Collin." He turned to Hal. "We can't tell him about what's going on. We don't know if we can trust him. We can't do magic in this apartment anymore and…"

Suddenly Rich had another thought. He seemed to be having many today.

"That's right! We have to move Mirvin's stuff into your room Hal. We can't have the new guy in there with that window to the Library. It wouldn't be a good idea."

Hal started to look furious at the idea of rooming with Mirvin, but Rich quickly cut in.

"Mirvin is never here anyway. He goes off with Michael for days at a time, and shuffles in from the Library to go to classes."

Hal still didn't look convinced.

Rich tried a new tact. "He would have to come in your room anyway, just to go to classes in the morning. You wouldn't see him any more than normal either way."

Hal shrugged. "Yeah fine whatever."

Rich nodded. "Ok, now what we should do, to prepare for his arrival, is-"

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

Holy crap.

Rich resisted the urge to swear aloud. This college sure didn't believe in giving them too much warning about what they were doing.

"He's here already? Wow that was mighty quick" said Collin, treating it as if it were more amusing than deeply problematic.

"Collin, go upstairs and move Mirvin's crap out of your room, into Hal's."

Collin started to protest, but Rich glared at him. Collin walked toward the stairs, none too fast, mumbling under his breath. Rich ignored him and moved to the door. He opened it

"Hi, this is Room 104 right?" said the kid in the doorway. There was nothing out of the ordinary about him, besides the fact that he was carrying two or three huge duffel bags.

"Yeah, this is the place" Rich said, trying not to sound nervous. "I take it you're our, uh, new roommate?

"Yeah, that's me. I'm Adrian, nice to meet you."

Rich stood there a second, trying to think of something to say, and trying NOT to think about the supernaturally opaque window in Hal's room, and the other billion ways this guy could find out that something strange was going on in good old room 104.

Hal stepped past Rich and shook Adrian's outstretched hand.

"Yo, I'm Hal." Hal said gruffly. And without further ado he grabbed two of Adrian's giant bags, slung them over his shoulder, and walked toward the stairs.

"I'll just take these up to your room." He said over a shoulder, as he walked away.

Adrian looked confused. He shrugged after a moment though, and laughed.

"Well, that was uh… cool- of him. So what were you guys up to before I came? Did I interrupt anything?"

Rich immediately felt an irrational surge of nerves. Did he know what they had been talking about? Had he heard them?

"We were uh, just about to go to the Lib- the uh, the gym. Yeah everyone was just headed for a little work out."

Adrian got a confused look on his face again, clearly not understanding Rich's nerves.

"Oh alright. I don't think I caught your name, by the way. Or anyone's name here for that matter. Where is everyone anyway?

Rich was feeling much calmer now. Hal quickly came back down the stairs after him and Collin had moved Mirvin's junk into Hal's room, and Adrian's stuff in with Collin.

The four of them were at the breakfast table now, eating some Fruit Loops. Hal had brightened up considerably since starting to talking to Adrian, and everything was going pretty well. Rich didn't think Hal was very good at staying grumpy for long anyway. It never really took much to cajole him out of it.

After a minute or two they all decided to show Adrian his room upstairs, and since Adrian wasn't done with his cereal yet, he carried it with him up the stairs.

"Yo Adrian, I saw a pair of boxing gloves sticking out of your bags when I was carrying them. Do you use them a lot?"

Rich was about to chime in about his own experience with boxing, when he froze. His mind quickly went through about a dozen different things he could do to fix what he saw ahead of him just now, but none of them sounded like he could get away with it smoothly.

Adrian hadn't noticed yet, but the milk and Fruit loops were no longer in the bowl he was carrying.

They were floating in the air, a foot behind his head.


	11. New Friends and Chameleons 2

An Order in the Madness (2) 

Rich looked over at Collin, who was next to him. Collin's eyes were wide. So he had noticed as well. Rich turned back to front. Hal and Adrian definitely still hadn't noticed. Right now they were talking about boxing.

Rich glanced to his left. Collin was motioning wildly to the floating milk right above Adrian's head. Hal and Adrian were still walking up the stairs, but the milk and cereal was floating in that direction as well, keeping more or less over Adrian's head.

Rich nodded at Collin, indicating that he had indeed noticed his strange roommate's wild gestures. Seeing that he had Rich's attention, Collin made a shrugging gesture, pointed to the milk and then mouthed something. It took Rich a moment to realize he had mouthed, "What should we do?"

Collin began reaching out for the milk, but Rich waved him off. He climbed up another stair and put his hands out in front of him, directed at the milk. Hal and Adrian had stopped on the stairs now, discussing some point. Hal was making sharp jabbing motions in the air, as he was explaining something. Since Rich was directly behind Adrian, he could hear the words, but he was too busy at the moment to really pay attention.

Suddenly Rich had a flash of inspiration. He remembered watching Dan while he was teaching a different student. Dan had taught the student a spell for moving objects nearby. After seeing Erica's fight, Rich thought he could ask Dan about learning new words of power. He hadn't tried the spell Dan had taught him yet, but now was as good a time as any to practice.

He focused his attention on the floating milk in front of him, and began focusing his will, and muttering the words softly. How did they go again?

"Meum…moviste…"

Suddenly Adrian turned around, bowl still in hand.

"Hey, what are you mumbling about back-"

It was at that precise moment that the floating milk chose to suddenly drop out of the air.

Directly onto Adrian's head.

Rich stared in astonishment.

Impossible. He hadn't even completed the spell yet. What was going on? And for that matter, what had started that effect in the first place?

While milk and various flavored fruit loops were dripping from Adrian's head, Rich sensed movement in his peripheral. Collin jumped forward, grabbed the bowl in Adrian's hands, and immediately raised it over his head, turning the bowl so it was upside down. He then immediately donned a big goofy grin.

Rich was impressed. He hadn't thought that Collin had it in him. Not only was that quick thinking, but it was fairly believable, Collin being the ass he was.

Adrian looked over at Collin, confusion and anger vying for position on his face. At this point Hal decided to empty the cup of orange juice he had been carrying over Collin's head.

Adrian and Collin looked at each other. Collin had orange juice dripping off his hair, and colored fruit loops and milk appeared to be oozing out of Adrian's forehead.

There was a moment when everyone just stared, and then the tension broke, and everyone burst out laughing.

After Collin and Adrian had changed, Rich began helping Adrian move in. Actually, at the moment he was just sitting on Collin's bed, idly talking to Adrian about room 104's random food fights, and how nothing that happened today was really unusual.

In actuality, Rich was thinking about what he would tell the rest of his roommates- about how to handle this. Hopefully whatever had happened just now, that thing with the milk, was done happening and they could-

Adrian was brought back to reality by a sharp yell from Adrian.

Adrian was looking at the ceiling, Rich followed his gaze.

The boxing gloves were sitting there, as if glued in place.

"What the HELL is-". The boxing gloves disappeared.

They were back beside Adrian. Rich saw his new roommate take a deep breath, and then turn to get more clothes out of his bag to put into his dresser.

Except now the clothes in his bag were gone.

He looked up.

They were on the ceiling. Adrian reached down to grab the bag to go collect them off the ceiling. His hands came up with nothing. He looked down. His bag was gone.

He stood up, starting to feel agitated. He looked up. His bag and his clothes were on the ceiling.

Adrian fell to his knees, covering his face with his hands.

"Will someone PLEASE tell me WHAT IS GOING ON?" He pleaded, to no one in particular.

Rich got up from the bed, his mind racing for something to say, some way to explain what was happening-

He walked towards Adrian. He was kneeling on the ground, peeking up at the ceiling from between the cracks in his folded hands. Suddenly he dropped his hands to the sides and let himself fall backwards on to his back, taking a deep, healing sigh.

Rich looked up. The ceiling was bare. Adrian's clothes and bag, and everything else were back beside him on the floor, where they should be.

He looked at Rich and laughed, a little shakily. "Apparently my trip had me a little more strung out than I thought-"

At that exact instant, tools from Rich's tool box began marching into the room, in single file. Each of them had tiny feet, and little mouths. And they were all whistling in chorus, what Rich recognized as sounding suspiciously like "The Ants Go Marching".

Adrian turned to watch the spectacle, his face white as a sheet.

Collin came in then, racing around the corner and into the room. He tramped around, laughing maniacally and kicking wrenches and hammers and measuring tape everywhere. Every time Collin kicked one , it would let out a little "Eep!" and then fly across the room and land on the hard floor with a CLANG, instantly turning back into a regular tool.

Rich and Adrian both watched Collin, speechless, as he ran around the room, dispatching various appliances and house tools, seeming to thoroughly enjoy himself.

The tools had dropped their happy song now, and were all running for their "lives". Some of them were even yelling and trying to mount a defense against the crazy rampaging giant.

Hal walked in to investigate the commotion, just as Colin was stepping on a hapless socket wrench that had made a break for the door.

After it was over, all the roommates of room 104 looked at each other, just staring wordlessly for a moment. For some reason Collin looked smug, as if he knew exactly what was going on.

Adrian burst out with "What the HELL? Do you NORMALLY run around slaughtering singing garden tools?"

Collin laughed. "Sorry, I've been playing a little trick on you. See, everything the whole time was me. It's all just some illusions I picked up when I worked at a magic shop. "

Rich and Hal looked at each other. Hal shrugged.

Hal looked at Adrian, and then at Collin. "Um Collin, maybe you, or uh, we should head on down to Vertigo, and maybe we, or uh- you, can explain to him exactly what's been going on."

Adrian looked confused and frightened, as he wildly stared from one roommate to the other. Upon hearing Hal's suggestion though, he nodded his head vigorously.

"Yes. Alcohol. Alcohol sounds good."


	12. New Friends and Chameleons 3

It's hot 

Part 3

Rich suddenly got an idea. He zoomed upstairs calling some excuse over his shoulder.

"Dude, where you goin?" Demanded Hal. But Rich didn't answer him. He left everyone downstairs in front of the door. Hopefully they would wait for him.

He had no idea what was happening to them. The strange magic effects that seemed to happen at random. But he could just ask Jeremy. Simple. Jeremy would know. He grinded to a halt in front of Hal's door, and swung it open.

He stood there in the door, gaping. When it rains, it pours.

In the back of the room, sitting on Hal's strangely opaque window, was a …creature. It was ghost-white, strangely transparent, about a foot in length, and… a chameleon. It had an oval head, two bulging eyes on either side of its head, and a ghostly whitish tongue that flickered out of its mouth every so often, tasting the air. And it was stuck to the top of Hal's bedroom window by its little suction feet. And it was watching Rich with one of its eyes. Rich didn't have time for this. He crept towards the window, watching the creature carefully. It didn't move. Its one eye shifted a little towards the back of its head, one small bright white pupil trained on his position. Suddenly Rich burst forward diving through the window superman style, hands stretched out in front of him. He tucked himself into a roll once he got through the window, and landed on one knee.

He was about to look around, feeling proud of his little maneuver, when a hand swung out in front of him, hitting him hard in the chest and making him fall over clumsily, sprawling on the floor. After a moment Rich shook his head, clearing it, then looked up.

There was a man crouched over him. He wore black VR goggles that blinked soft green light. Draped around his neck were several wires that attached to little boxes hooked onto his chest.. All blinked various colors, and made different ranges of beeping noises. The man reached out an arm flowing with red, blue and green wires, and flipped his visor up.

"Yo little dude, sorry I didn't see ya there!" Micheal said, grinning goofishly. "You know you should let people know when you're going to dive jump at them ninja-style like that."

He put himself into a mock-ninja pose, and then chuckled, jumping back onto his rolling chair and caroming back through the room, ricocheting off walls and sending several furious-looking old men holding papers flying, the papers lightly soaring through the room. Rich grinned. What a freak.

He ran across the room, spotting Jeremiah on the other side, looking like he was rushing somewhere.

He caught him just before the stairs.

Jeremy turned. "Hello Rich. I'm sorry I can't help you at the moment, I am very busy."

Rich rapidly told Jeremy the happenings in his apartment, saying that all he wanted was some quick advice.

Jeremy smiled. "Well then, that much is easy. Simply relax."

Rich looked taken aback.

"Sometimes, when Awakened humans get nervous, they change reality around them without realizing it. When this occurs, because the individual is not in control of the action, he may perform feats that he could not do normally."

Rich nodded slowly, trying to understand. "Oh ok. That is odd. I wonder who created the ghost-chameleon."

Jeremiah stared up at the ceiling, looking very distracted. After a few moments, just when Rich was about to say something further, Jeremiah looked at him sharply. "Did you just say a GHOST chameleon? " Rich nodded. "Oh. OH. Well isn't that interesting." Jeremy looked up again, his eyes glazing over.

After a moment he turned to Rich. "I'm sorry Rich I can't help you at the moment, just hang tight and I will come by in a while to see how I can help. I have pressing matters to attend to.". And with that, Jeremy hurried up the stairs.

"Don't bother the chameleon" he added over his shoulder, before disappearing upstairs.

Rich moved back through the library and carefully past the Chameleon in the door. It still hadn't moved, and was at the moment still just watching Rich.

Rich ran downstairs and grabbed Hal, telling him that he needed to see something. Adrian and Collin look at him suspiciously, but Collin caught on, and began talking to Adrian about something. Probably something inane.

When Hal walked into his room, his jaw fell open.

"What the HELL is that doing in my room?" After a brief argument with Hal concerning whether belting a small supernatural reptile was really a good idea, Hal relented and slammed the door shut, locking it from the outside.

After that they all hurried to the bar.

After they arrived at Vertigo, Adrian had to go to the bathroom, so Rich took the opportunity to tell Hal and Collin what had happened while he was gone. Collin looked excited when Rich mentioned the chameleon. Collin really was a lunatic. Hal looked like he was thinking furiously when Rich mentioned Jeremiah's explanation. After a moment he grunted.

"Figures the punk would blow us off. Something is definitely going on here, and he ain't telling us jack."

After that, Adrian came back in the room, and Collin gestured them all to the back of Vertigo, to a table. Rich sincerely hoped Collin wasn't going to do anything stupid.

"It's very simple. It's been me, the whole time." Said Collin, grinning mischievously.

Adrian looked at him skeptically, and also, a little drunkenly. They had spent the last few hours drinking, and Collin had done what he could to keep Adrian's mind off of all the events of the day. Collin figured that the moment he had been waiting for was just about here now- the moment where Adrian was drunk enough to be most apt to believe some pretty dubious claims on Collin's part, but not so drunk that he wouldn't remember it in the morning.

He sat at the back of the bar, with Adrian across the table from him, and Hal and Rich on either side of him. In front of them was a candle. Collin dug into his pockets, and pulled out some string, a television remote, a plastic child's toy wand, and a butane lighter.

"Using only these humble items, I was able to achieve all of the effects that you observed back at our humble abode" Collin said with a grandiose flourish. Rich rolled his eyes. What an ass.

Adrian leaned forward. "What? What are you talking about? How? How can you make tools run around and sing using all that crap?"

. Collin looked nervous. "I, um well-". Abruptly the flame on the candle lifted off into the air, and began tracing a furious path through the air, pulling off a few figure eights, and generally not behaving like a candle flame.

Adrian stood up, pushing his chair back in the process, it tumbled over and crashed to the ground. He pointed a finger at the flame. "Like THAT! How are you doing that! Stop screwing with me!"

Collin fumbled desperately on the table for the wand. He took it up and stood up as well. He pointed it at the rampaging flame, and began twirling the wand around and saying nonsensical things like "Flame, go around and fly and-" Suddenly the flame swooped down and landed on his light brown jacket.

"And land on my jacket! Heh heh, yes perfect, great." He jumped back from the table and took off his jacket. He threw it on the ground, stamping on it. "Heh, excuse me I have to um, fix my, uh broken wand." He ran off, carrying his smoking jacket, in the direction of the rest room.

Adrian glared at them suspiciously from the back of Hal's car all the way back to the apartment. Adrian hadn't had any more to drink after the incident at the bar, and now seemed determined to get to the bottom of what was going on in Apartment 104.

When they got back to the apartment, they all turned to try talking to Adrian once. But he froze, and looked up at the stairs. His eyes got wide and he turned white.

"What… what is that?" Adrian said, pointing up at the stairs. As one group, Hal, Rich and Collin turned to look where he was pointing. There was nothing there. Adrian didn't even bother explaining. He just raced up the stairs, the rest of the apartment in tow.

He stopped at the top. He looked scared. "Wait- Guys- I, I just saw… I saw myself walk down the hall, and into this room." He pointed to Hal's door.

Rich stepped in front of him. "Heh heh, no um you don't want to go in there, we put booby traps in it. See we've been having this thief, the last few days. And-"

Hal growled at him. "Shut up Rich. There's no point at this point."

Rich bristled. "Hal, we need to-"

While they were arguing, Adrian stepped to the door and grabbed the handle. He turned it. It was open.

Hal, Rich and Collin all looked at one another. They reached forward to stop Adrian, but it was too late.

He walked into the room. He saw the chameleon. It was directly in front of him.

"What in the name of-". He stopped abruptly as the chameleon looked at him. It tasted the air, its tongue stretching out unnaturally to lick Adrian's forehead. Its double eyelids blinked twice, and then it moved, faster than light. It dodged to the right, and then flew through the air, directly into Adrian's chest. He cried out and turned around, his eyes wide and staring at everyone.

"Help" he croaked, falling to his knees.. "It's…hot." He said, sleepily. The white ghostly chameleon faded into Adrian's chest, and disappeared.

"Dude, What the- Adrian are you alright?" Hal asked..

Adrian sat up from where he had fallen over after the chameleon hit him. "I… It's weird, I feel like standing up and kicking all of you in the crotch, but I feel like someone injected me with morphine. Something just jumped into my chest, something that looked like a tiny pasty white gecko, but I feel calm, like, like… " He drifted off sleepily, and then passed out on the floor.


	13. Chasing Chameleons

Chasing Lizards 

Rich yawned, and headed for bed. It had been a long, tiring, and ultimately-strange, week. It seemed like every week now for the last few months had just gotten stranger and stranger. Last Saturday they had been terrified after that weird… thing, had entered into their new roommate- Adrian. After he had fallen unconscious, Hal picked him up without a word, and ran directly through his door to the Library.

Rich had tried to explain calmly to Jeremy what had happened, but everyone else had kept interrupting him. Finally Jeremy calmed everyone, and Hal explained roughly what happened. Just like when Rich had tried to tell Jeremiah about it last time, the man seemed confused.

He had said, "You know I'm tempted to disbelieve you, just based on Occam's Razor. But, it is true that you are all so adamant about it and well- I must admit, this one's pattern _does_ appear rather odd. Though I cannot detect anything within him, it is possible the spirit you speak of has already bonded with him so fully that I wouldn't be able to tell. You are quite certain you saw a spirit enter his body?"

They had all been sure of what they had seen. Jeremiah said that he didn't know what to tell them. He had claimed that all they could do was watch Adrian, and report to Jeremy immediately if anything strange happened to him. They hadn't been terribly happy about that, but what could they do?

When Adrian had finally come to, he had started babbling, saying something about strange dreams, and then- he remembered. It took Hal, Rich and Collin combined to get him to stop yelling and clawing at his chest when he remembered what had happened to him. During the rest of the week- Rich observed that Adrian's…incident, had a few effects on Apartment 104. Firstly, it brought Adrian into the Hermetic and magic world in a "bucket of water in face" kind of way. It was ironic that Rich and the rest of the apartment had spent so much time and effort trying to keep all that stuff away from Adrian, and in the end he had walked right into the very thick of it all by himself. They had Jeremy give Adrian the very same speech he had given the rest of them months ago. This time Jeremy's flame had gotten a little out of hand, and it set fire to the curtains. Dan had put it out with a little wink. It was great.

Rich hadn't gotten much chance to talk to Adrian, but when he had- Adrian looked like a man who had accepted the things that had happened to him only because he was forced into it. Judging by Jeremy's talk with them while Adrian was unconscious- Rich guessed that Adrian was less than satisfied with the answers Jeremy gave him about the Chameleon… thing currently resided in his chest.

Anyway- the second effect that the incident seemed to have- was that it brought Adrian "into the fold" a lot faster than normal. He was already joking around with Collin, and exchanging tough guy stories with Hal. Rich had just been busy this week.

After thinking about all this for a while, Rich finally drifted off to sleep. He dreamed that he faced himself in the mirror, and that his other self carried a stopwatch. His doppleganger kept pointing to it while a massive TICK TOCK sound reverberated in his room, making the walls shake and the furniture slowly slide. The sounds got louder and louder, TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK, TICK…

Rich woke up, startled. What a strange dream, he- Something was wrong. He still heard loud noises, only it wasn't clock sounds.

It was Collin, he was calling for help.

"Collin- LISTEN TO ME. CALM THE HELL DOWN."

Hal shook Collin, who was gibbering. Rich walked around them in the hall, and leaned over the railing to stare at the scene below.

Someone or… some THING, had broken into their apartment. On the wall next to the door below there was a huge scorch mark. On the ground there was a slash in the floorboard; Rich couldn't imagine anyone ever doing that with a sword. It spanned half the length of the floor, and the gap was huge- it looked like what a two by four would do- if it was sharp and... wielded by someone flying along the ground. Rich shook his head; he was hanging around Collin too much.

Rich headed down the stairs cautiously. It looked like whatever had been here was gone now. There were pieces of metal in the slash mark on the ground though. Along with… blood. Yech.

Rich bent down to look at the pieces of metal. He picked up a piece and rolled it over in his fingers. It didn't look like anything he had ever seen before. It wasn't iron or steel or anything like that. It had a strange sheen to it.

He glanced behind him then, and noticed Collin and Hal, looking at him. That's funny. Where was Adrian?

Then Rich really saw his roommates' expressions for the first time. This was bad.

They rushed into the Library and Michael was there. Apparently Jeremiah had gone out, or home, or wherever he went when he wasn't working.

Michael was sitting in front of his massive computer set up; he greeted them as they approached, without even turning around.

"Yo boys. What's up?" Michael hit controls on his set up and touched portions of the screen in front of him, making all sorts of weird characters scroll down his litany of screens.

"Michael, Adrian has been kidnapped. We don't know by whom. We did get these from the scene of the crime, however." Rich said, trying to sound calm and controlled.

Michael spun around on his chair to face them. His left hand still danced over the touch screen behind him, seemingly independent of his body. With his right hand, Michael accepted the things Rich gave him.

It was the bits of metal they had found, along with a sample of the blood that was in the little gap the slash mark had made in the floor. He had put on some plastic gloves that were in the kitchen cabinet, and got a little of the blood and put it in a plastic bag. He figured Michael could help them figure out what was going on with it.

Michael spun back around in his chair, putting the metal and the blood into a little compartment that looked like a microwave under his computer screens. He then began touching the 5 screens in front of him in a dizzying series of hand movements. After a moment he raised his left hand and put it into a duck shape. He turned it towards the three of them behind him, and opened and closed his hand.

"Bye bye" was all he said. He put his visor back down over his head, and replaced a pair of giant headphones over his ears. Loud techno music began pouring out of the phones, loud enough that it was clearly audible to Rich.

After a moment Rich shrugged at the rest of his roommates, and began heading back to Hal's door. They were all still sleepy, and so it hadn't really sunk in yet just how much this whole thing sucked.

Right as Rich was about to pass through the window, Hal and Collin right behind him, a voice spoke up, seeming to come directly out of nowhere. It was Michael's. It said- "Oh and don't call the police. They can't help you with this. Come back in the morning."

And with that it cut out. They looked back at where Michael was seated, in front of his screens, past all the desks which were all empty now. He was still vibrating to his techno music, his hands playing over the screens.

Rich scratched his head. Creepy.

When they got back into Hal's room, Hal turned to address Rich and Collin.

"Ok, what we should do now, is-"

Rich cut him off. "What we should do now, is go to bed."

Hal started protesting, but Rich stared right at him.

"Hal- we can't do anything right now. You heard Michael- we can't call the police. And we have no idea, no inkling as to who took Adrian, why, or where. We can't just wander the streets, calling out his name. And Michael is analyzing the stuff we gave him, but it is going to take time. We are going to need our rest for tomorrow. Because we ARE going to find Adrian."

He turned to look at Collin. Collin looked away uncomfortably.

Hal grumbled during Rich's speech, but he seemed unable to argue with Rich's reasoning. But he nodded now "Ok, man- I guess you're right. And damn straight we're going to find Adrian. We can't just leave him; he's only been with us for a freakin week. I'm going to knock out the teeth of whoever grabbed him. "

And with that, they all went to sleep. Hal still seemed uncertain about it, like he really hated sleeping while Adrian might be out there somewhere; being hurt by god knows what. But Rich was satisfied with his own reasoning, so he went back to bed and slept dreamlessly.

"Nope, it's totally for sure. This is technocrat metal. They use it for their machiney thingers. You know the ones that go-"Michael made a series of child-like noises and hand gestures that were apparently supposed to mimic a metal suit.

Rich nodded uncertainly. "Ok… and the blood?"

"Probably your granny's!" Michael said, laughing hysterically and sending his chair into a dizzying whirl.

Rich was confused. "My grandmother- what do you mean, I don't know-"

There was a heavy sigh from behind them. "That is Michael-speak for 'I don't know'.

Rich whirled. It was Jeremy.

Jeremy smiled thinly. "But what it does mean- is that it is not Adrian's because we would know that much."

"Jeremy!" said Hal, rushing forward to shake his hand. "Hey man, you gotta help us, Adrian-"

Jeremy held up his hand to halt Rich. "Yes I know Hal. I have been working on it since I got here this morning. Michael did some looking, and he managed to find where your friend is being held. He is in a Technocratic facility in the northwestern United States. Since none of you were attacked, I can only assume that they do not know that you are awakened mages. Following from this, it is likely that they tracked the Chameleon spirit residing within your associate, and are interested in studying it further. "

Hal looked alarmed. "That means-"

Jeremy nodded. "I'm afraid so. He is probably being tested, perhaps not in an altogether humane or safe way."

Hal looked furious. "Jeremy- we have to get him out, right friggin NOW."

Jeremy smiled. "I figured you would say that. Michael has a fix on the facility's location. He can open a portal to it shortly. But please be patient for just a moment. I want to show you something, and introduce you to two other Hermetics like yourself."

Jeremy led them into through the big wooden doors to the actual library. In the back there was a table that had something on it that looked like a coat hanger. Hanging from each rung was a tag. There were ten rows of hooks, and at least a dozen hooks in each row.

Jeremy gestured to the coat hanger. "This is our tag system. It indicates jobs that we, or other houses or associates need done. Each has a reward attached to it, to be giving upon successful completion. Rewards can be access to certain items, information, and usually- cash compensation. But as you'll find, most of those working within Blue House no longer really care a lot about the rewards. Mostly the tags prove to myself and the other leaders of House Blue, that you have reached a certain level in your training. We take your completion of tags into account when we consider what to train you, and when to let you take part in tournaments. As you'll also find- it serves to establish a bit of a pecking order around here. Many in House Blue take great pride in accomplishing difficult tags. And if you talk to people like Kristyna, Erica, or others, I am sure they will tell you that the main reason they do these tags, is to give back to Blue House, since it has kept them safe and let them live and learn in the way that they want.

Hal nodded impatiently. Jeremy held up a tag. "This is a level 6 tag. It means that only Hermetics in Blue House with a ranking of 6 or above can choose to do this mission. I posted it this morning. The mission is the location and liberation of one Adrian Zade. The reward is in the amount of 50,000 dollars."

Rich and his friends gaped.

Jeremy chuckled. "You will find that here at house Blue, we have a most effective way of garnering funds. But still, it is a good sum because it is a difficult mission. In fact, there are already two individuals who have agreed to take it on."

At that point there was a noise, and Rich looked back through the rows of books towards the library door. It was opening, and someone was coming in, someone huge. He had to duck slightly, to enter the door. He stood well over 7 feet tall, and moved with a slow grace. The kind of grace a huge man needed to have, to avoid knocking over things. He wore a large black shirt, black pants, and the more interesting part- a black plaster mask. It more or less fit his face's form, and made him look like a giant, evil, phantom of the opera. Jeremy stepped briskly out into the open, where the big guy could see him more clearly.

Rich and the others followed. Jeremy stopped in front of the big guy, and closed his eyes. Hal walked up from behind Rich.

"Hey there buddy, how's it goin? What's your name?" The giant figure was looking at Jeremy; he turned slowly away to look at Hal. Slowly, he put out a massive hand. Hal shrugged, and took it. His hand was bigger than Hal's by at least 3 fold.

Jeremy's eyes snapped open. He looked at Hal. "He is mute, Hal. He cannot talk. He has to use…other methods. In any case, his friend will be along shortly. In the mean time, would it be alright if he and I accompanied you back to your apartment? We need to confirm a few things."

Rich watched Hal looking at the big guy in front of him dumbly, and then slowly nod. The big black monstrosity turned slowly, and lumbered off back towards the offices.

Collin had lots of questions for Jeremy on the way there, few of which he could, or was willing, to answer. When Rich stepped through behind everyone else into Hal's room, he saw the big guy reach out with his hands. From between his hands, another man that looked exactly like him appeared, his hands in the same position, facing in the same direction, so they looked like a giant bobsled team, or like they were forming a Congo line. This happened twice more, the fourth giant phantom of the opera appearing the hallway, since there was no more space. All four quickly moved out, spreading through the apartment. One remained in Hal's room, one moved over into Adrian's room, and the other two went downstairs. Rich and the others walked carefully around the one that was in Hal's room, and went to the stairs railing to look over it at the happenings below.

One of the big guys was looking at the burn and slash marks below with Jeremy, the other three were moving in an out of rooms, a lot faster than Rich would've figured someone of that size could move. After a while, the big guy put out his hands again, and his other three copies vanished. Jeremy walked up the stairs, with the giant behind him.

"Ok. We have determined that most likely your roommate, Adrian, did not allow himself to be taken without a fight. It is as I suspected- he was taken because of the spirit within him. It is likely that that spirit severely injured a Technocrat in a mechanical suit, while the other technocrat, a Black Hat, was able to subdue him. It is unlikely Adrian was conscious for any of this- and even more unlikely that the Chameleon spirit within him was actually prepared for such an attack. If you decide to tag along on this mission, I advise caution when you find Adrian. He will most likely not be in control of himself, and the spirit within him may be very dangerous indeed when it is not taken unawares, as happened last night.

Rich nodded at all of this, but Hal looked angry.

"What do you mean "if"? We ARE goin."

Jeremy nodded, keeping his opinion on the matter to himself, and they all went back to the Library.

No sooner had they arrived there, then the air around them seem to shimmer as if it were water and someone had just tossed a very large stone in it. Rich turned his attention to the middle of the large room, beside the cluster of cubicles.

A man popped into existence there vibrating forward, as if he were a rubber band. His body seemed to stretch out, making it look like there was hundreds of him, spread out the length of the room. Presently there was a small popping sound, and the other shadowy images of him all snapped back, as if the rubber band had snapped them back into his one body.

He turned toward them and smiled. "Hello friends!" He said, grinning. He wore form-fitting silver armor bordered in white. Behind him trailed a long white cape. He looked like some kind of freaky silver knight. He took off a gauntlet, and used his bare hand to lift up his visor. He had a friendly face.

"Oh, I see my partner is already here." The giant nodded solemnly at the knight, his expression hidden behind the dark porcelain mask. The knight grinned at him.

"So are you ready, big man? Let's go. I'm eager to get this kid out of there." He paused, his expression looking serious. "No matter what it takes," he finished.

"Good" said Hal. "And we're going with you."

Jeremy interjected, walking in between Hal and the newcomer. "I refrained from saying this earlier, but I am concerned about you three going with these gentlemen. They are both level 7, whereas you are still beginners. Don't get me wrong, you have all made great strides in the last few months, but this mission is dangerous. They will bring your friend back. They are very efficient. You need not risk-"

Rich cut him off. "Jeremiah, we appreciate it, really. But we have to go. Adrian is there in part because of us, because of the choices we made. We can't abandon him now."

Jeremiah nodded. The silver knight looked at Rich. "As you wish. But I would ask that you please stay back out of our way. This may be difficult enough without us having to protect you as well." Rich and Hal began to protest, but the man held up a hand. "You can help us, but you MUST do as we instruct. Otherwise we cannot ensure your safety." He turned and walked towards where Michael was stationed at the end of the room.

"Now then, Michael- if you would?" Michael tapped at his screens, and a portal split the area in front of him. The giant and the knight walked through. Rich, Hal, and Collin moved in behind him, with Jeremiah standing there behind them all, looking worried.

"Be careful" Rich heard him say, just as he passed through the portal.

As the portal closed behind them, Rich took the chance to take a look around. It was cold here. Rich could see his breath. They were in a dense forest; trees towered all around them, and obstructed vision for more than a few feet.

"Hey Hal, where-". Rich began, but stopped when the silver knight appeared in front of him with a finger pressed to his lips.

"Shh" he said softly. He pointed to his right and then moved that way. Rich followed him.

Collin, Hal, and the Giant were clustered in a small clearing right near the edge of the tree line a ways away. Rich kneeled near them, and together they watched the giant and the knight.

The knight crept forward towards the tree line, and then sat down carefully behind a huge tree. He closed his eyes and clasped his hands together, concentrating on something. Rich glanced over at the giant, who was several meters to the left now. He also had his eyes closed, and his hands were moving.

Rich turned his attention to look through the trees in front of him. There trees ended in a wide valley, and at the bottom he could see a huge white building. It was mansion sized, but looked anything like a mansion. It was a simple giant white square, with no windows, and no doors save one, in the very front. Other than that, it had no adornments to speak of whatsoever. It looked more like a giant refrigerator than it did a building.

After a moment, the giant and the knight looked at each other and began gesturing. Had they figured out what was in the area? And were they telling each other with some system Rich couldn't understand?

After they had finished "communicating", they both started moving out of cover. Apparently they were confident there was no one in the area watching them. Rich, Collin and Hal began to follow.

BANG. A shot rang out, echoing through the woods. Pieces of plaster flew everywhere, as a bullet passed directly through the head of the giant in front of them.

'OH SHIT" Hal yelled, scrambling back and keeping his head down.

Rich did likewise. It must be a sniper. He glanced over at the big black clothed form on the tree line. He was clearly dead. Blood began pooling behind his head and trickling down the hill into the small valley below.

"I thought I told you to be quiet!" said a voice to Rich's right. It was the knight.

Rich pointed at the dead giant that was slowly leaking blood out of his head.

"Oh No." The knight said softly. He turned and ran toward the clearing in front of him, where he had been leaving cover a minute ago. He immediately put his hands out in front and began chanting loudly in some language Rich didn't understand. A second shot rang out, but it curved around his form, hitting a tree right behind Rich. Rich scrambled away from the knight, trying to find cover. This wasn't good. Not good at-

"You IDIOTS! Get OUT OF HERE" The knight screamed, throwing a hand up in their direction. Rich felt a giant invisible hand scoop him up and toss him through the woods. He flew backward several yards deeper into the forest, bounced off a tree and hit the ground painfully. After a moment he looked up.

The white knight was scrambling to try and get out of sniper range. A few more shots rang out, which he deflected. But then- a small green spherical object fell towards him from the air.

"Oh SHIT" He said, chanting loudly, the spherical object arced slightly away from him, down to the right of his midsection…

And exploded.

Rich's teeth rattled painfully under the blast, and he felt heat wash over him. After a moment he got enough nerve to look up again.

Where the knight had been, there were now only pieces of charred metal, and a smoking body.

Rich stayed where he was, too terrified to move. They were really fucked now.


	14. Technocrat Base

Rich stayed where he was, painfully propped against a tree trunk, for several minutes. There was no sound, not so much as a leaf crunching. All he could hear was his own labored breathing.

That grenade – Rich got the strange feeling that somehow it had been flung from a great distance.

There was heavy brush all around him, the trees and thorn vines were thick. It meant that whatever snipers were out there couldn't see him (he hoped). But it also meant that all Rich could see were the remains of the knight that had saved his life, and the slow ponderous smoke coming slowly off of him. Rich felt a pang of sharp regret, underneath his bubbling fear.

These men had come with them, trying to give their new roommate his freedom, and they had died because of it.

Adrian. He was still in there, right now. They had to get him out; there was nothing else for it. These people just proved that they are seriously messed up. Kill two men just for showing up near them.

God only knows what they would do to Adrian. Especially with that… thing, hanging out in his body.

There was a rustle behind Rich. He turned quickly to look over his shoulder and behind the tree he was leaning on. He regretted it. His neck cricked and he groaned in pain. It felt like he pulled something.

Wincing a little, he peered into the forest behind him. What had that been?

A fearful thought struck him, shivering him to the bones.

Had they sent someone around behind them, to take them out while they were pinned down?

It was then that he heard the whisper.

"Hey! Rich!"

A burly figure moved partially out of the underbrush, kneeling down.

It was Hal. Rich sighed in relief.

Hal. Good. Maybe now they could do something. They needed to find the others but where-

"Hal! Are you ok? Where are the others?

Hal looked like he was going to be sick. "Rich, the two guys that came with us, I think they, uh-" Rich waved him off. "Yeah. They're both dead. The giant was shot through the head by a sniper, and the knight-"

Rich gestured behind him, where the twisted metal suit lay. Hal nodded sadly. "Yeah, we were all flung away by him right before…"

"Right before he was destroyed by those men that kidnapped Adrian."

Hal's expression hardened. He stood up from cover and pounded a fist into a palm.

"I'm going to kill every last one of those bastards, and then drag their rotting corpses to-"

It was then that a tree next to where Hal was standing erupted in shattered bark. Rich grabbed Hal and pulled the bigger man down into cover.

"Hal- Listen, where's Collin?"

Hal looked steady and calm, but Rich got the feeling that underneath it all he was now really shaken.

"He uh, he's back deeper in the forest, around to the left. We found a, uh- air duct exhaust port that empties out in the forest. It has like a steel gate on it though. We would need to blow it off, but we're afraid that as soon as we do, we'll attract attention."

Rich raised an eyebrow. Since when was Hal worried about attracting attention?

Hal crept slowly deeper into the forest, and Rich followed. That was where he met him with the rest of his friends. And that is where they constructed their cunning plan.

Rich rocketed along in the open, just in front of the tree-line. He pushed and prodded mentally at his kinetic force, forcing it to stay at least triple of what it would be normally from just his legs propelling him forward. It had certainly taken a little getting used to- this business of having each step push him three times farther and faster than normal, but Rich was mostly used to it by now.

But one thing was for certain, Rich thought to himself, as he zigzagged around a large oak tree, and back out into the top of the hill-

This plan was a good deal less cunning then he thought. At this speed everything seemed to be moving slower- the leaves falling as he brushed by low hanging branches, the little clods of grass he kicked up as he sped by- everything.

Well, except the bullets. They still moved just as fast, causing trees and ground alike to explode in a shower of bark or dirt.

That was their cunning plan- run like crazy along the tree-line and attract attention from the snipers. The bullets were certainly still way faster than Rich could ever be, but the snipers themselves weren't. They couldn't get a bead on Rich, as he zoomed across hilly grass and leaf-covered forest alike. Sometimes he'd even jump and bounce off a tree in his escapade, just to mix things up and keep the snipers thinking. So far they hadn't even gotten really close to him-

The ground several yards behind him exploded in a display of green and brown as grass and dirt were blown from their resting places. He grinned despite himself. He must look like a long blurred streak in the sniper's scope.

Rich took a look at the big square building below him in the clearing as he ran around. He was coming around on the "back" now- defined as such only because it was on the direct opposite side as the wall with the door, which supposedly was the "front".

Suddenly he saw a flash of light in the distance. That must be Collin, using squidy to destroy that grating. Rich suddenly saw movement coming from in front of him, moving in the opposite direction towards him.

Something was... jumping up from the ground high into the sky and…throwing rocks?

If Rich wasn't busy running, he would've slapped a hand to his forehead. Hal had just jumped into the air and thrown a rock at a sniper. It was lucky it was nearly impossible to hit him when he was bouncing around in the air like that.

A few minutes later, Rich was meeting up with Hal, both of them unscathed and grinning, back in the forest near where they had started.

"Hal, I must tell you, that was fairly dangerous what you just-"

Hal grinned and gave Rich a hearty slap on the back, cutting him off.

"Ha! It was great and you know it! Come on, did you see that metal-head's face when I jumped up on level with him and zipped a rock right into his stupid nose? Hah hah! Anyway, come on, we gotta catch up with Collin."

Rich decided it wasn't worth pressing the issue, and followed Hal down further into the woods.

When they got down to the place Hal had described, Rich saw a small tentacle of crackling fire wave at him. He tried very hard not to roll his eyes, as the thing abruptly faded out of existence. He followed the grinning Collin over the destroyed grate and down into a shaft that dropped a few feet, then turned and led a ways in the distance, before appearing to drop off again.

Rich dropped down the shaft behind Collin, and then followed him a ways ahead down the first shaft. After a moment he heard Hal's heavy frame land behind him with a low metallic sound.

Huddled there, in the dark of an air vent, in the middle of nowhere, seemed to have a sobering effect on all of them. The images of the knight, screaming at them, calling them fools, pushing them back into the forest, saving their lives, flashed through Rich's mind. And then the small green object, the explosion, the charred metal, the image of the masked giant, with that hole in his head, the blood seeping and melding red with green on the grass, slipping down the hill as it ran out of-

Rich shook his head to kill the image. He shuddered. Adrian. They were here for him. If these guys could do such things without provocation, what would they do to Adrian?

"Come one guys, w e have to get out of this space. We could easily be taken out with a... grenade, or- something else."

Hal and Collin murmured their assent to keep moving forward anyway.

Rich crept forward on all fours, feeling the cold, hollow-feeling metal rattle beneath him. This area must be suspended in some fashion. He heard a soft metal sound in front of him. He crawled to the end of the passage he was in and looked down. He saw Collin's loose blonde hair moving out of view, as he crawled down the next passage. Rich followed suit and Hal after him.

After a few minutes of much of the same, Rich suddenly froze. And the worst part was that he didn't know why. He had chills. It was as if his body suddenly knew something that his mind hadn't caught up with yet.

"Wait" said Hal's gruff voice behind him. Since Rich had already stopped, by the time Collin stopped, he was already a ways down the air duct shaft. Warm air was blowing past them all now, making it hard going forward and even harder to stay in one place comfortably. But Rich waited nonetheless. Not only that, but his elbows and knees were beginning to ache from-

"MOVE!" shouted Hal, his form crashing into Rich's legs. Rich immediately scrambled forward, and saw Collin doing the same.

"What?" shouted Rich, as he scrambled down the air duct. This passage was a lot longer than the other ones. They hadn't dropped off for a while yet.

"There's someone behind us. I heard sounds coming from back there. There is DEFINTELY someone following us. It has to be one of the snipers. They followed us into the duct. We have to MOVE."

Rich scrambled forward as fast as he could manage, his muscles beginning to protest with the awkward strain he was putting on them for crawling like this.

Collin kicked out in front of him, and then dropped out of view. Rich took only the merest of glances down to confirm Collin had gotten out of the way, before he dropped down lightly onto his feet, his body crouching to the ground, absorbing the shock of landing.

He looked around. The air duct grating was a crumpled mess Collin was a few feet in front of Rich now, on his feet. They appeared to be in a small, cramped room- at one end was a smooth beige colored door, with no discernible handle, and behind him…

Was a toilet. They were in a bathroom. Wonderful.

Rich heard sounds coming from over head as Hal rumbled through the air duct. Rich called up to him.

"Hal, hold on! Can you stay up there for a bit? We need you to keep watch on whatever might be following us. Meanwhile we'll see if we can figure out where we are, and where we should go next."

Hal's head appeared briefly above Rich. "Yeah sure. I'll kick its ass." Hal said, in an off-hand kind of way. His next comment sounded more nervous though.

"Could you, um hurry up though? I think the thing is getting closer."

Rich nodded, and Hal's head slipped out of view. What was that thing? Was it a sniper? Something else? Either way…

"Hey Rich, look over here!" came Collin's voice from the far end of the bathroom.

Rich jogged out of the bathroom stall and into the main area of the bathroom. Collin was by the door, which he had cracked open. Rich came up behind him and said softly-

"What did you discover?"

Collin said "Look at the sign painted on the hallway wall across from the door."

Rich nodded and Collin moved out of the way, holding the door for Rich. Rich kept the door open as he slid out to peer down the hall. He looked both ways, empty. He looked at what Collin had pointed out. It was a sign with two arrows. One said-"

EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL RESEARCH

With an arrow the pointed down the hall to the right. The other read-

BIO-ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT

With an arrow pointing to the left. Rich frowned, and stepped back into the bathroom with Collin.

"So, what do you think Richman? I vote we go for the Bio Engineer thingy- Adrian is mostly human after all." Collin laughed to himself, making Rich think that he meant it as a joke. Rich raised an eyebrow, and was about to speak- when he had a thought.

It was one of those rare, inspired thoughts. Rich raised a hand to quiet Collin, as he let the thought take its course.

Bio-engineering, that did make sense sort of but what about the other one? Extra-dimensional research… wasn't the chameleon that enveloped Adrian a spirit? Isn't that what Dan and Jeremy had said about it?

But wait… this place was a Technocratic Lab. Weren't the technocrats big on understanding absolutely everything in the world? Then if they encountered something like the chameleon in Corey…

That's it. Of course. They would want to study it, to understand it, force it to fit into their view of the world. And they might call it…

An extra-dimensional creature. Of course. Now all they had to do was-

A loud bellow interrupted Rich's thoughts. He and Collin turned around to look back at the end of the bathroom.

Hal was there, running out of a bathroom stall.

"We have to get out right NOW!"

Rich looked at Collin.

"Hal, man what's going on?" asked Collin.

"You aren't going to believe this. I saw a man in the air duct, with freaking WHEELS under his legs. He was speeding around like a metal cyber race car. And, he is probably about ready to come out of that air duct like right now, so could we please GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE?"

And without further debate, Hal grabbed both Collin and Rich, each under an arm, and ran out of the bathroom door.

Hal dropped Rich and Hal, and Rich motioned to the right, and Hal and Collin followed.

That was when the bathroom door behind them exploded in a ball of flame and light.

"SHIT" yelled Hal, and Rich could hardly argue. They flew down the hallway, not seeing anyone. After about five minutes of racing down halls and following the Extra-Dimensional Research, they all stopped to catch their breath. Rich felt like his lungs were about to explode.

"You think we lost them, squidy?" Collin whispered, into his pocket. Rich decided to pretend that was directed at him.

"Yeah, it looks like we lost them for now."

Hal and Collin nodded assent, and all three of them entered under a sign that said "Extra Dimensional Research". Apparently they had made it. Rich walked up to the first lab door on the left, and looked in the door window.

His mouth dropped.

He saw a bunch of complicated looking electrical equipment, lab tables-

And Adrian, standing on a lab table, half naked, his eyes the ghostly white of the chameleon spirit, and his tongue flying out several feet to grab a white-coated lab technician.


	15. Chameleons Break Free

Part 3

Chameleons Break Free

Rich found that he couldn't get himself to move, for several seconds. The scene in front of him was just too stupefying for words or action.

Adrian wore nothing but a hospital gown that drooped on his tall frame. Truly, it was a credit to the sheer intensity of the spectacle in front of them that no one jibed about Adrian standing on a lab table, naked but for a billowing open hospital gown.

Adrian crouched down and scooted across the table at an alarming rate, on all four legs- just like a chameleon. He flew to the side of the room, with the startled technician dangling from his freakishly long tongue. Then, with a twisting movement of his body, the apparition that was Adrian flung the technician into a wall. The man fell instantly unconscious, and Adrian's long white tongue snapped back into his mouth like a rebounding rubber band.

As Rich, Hal, and Collin stood in the doorway, Adrian turned towards them. Rich couldn't tell whether there was any recognition in his eyes, since they were so alien. An extra, gray-white membrane seemed to flick over them. Adrian on all fours, his legs spread white, cocked his head as he regarded them. It was incredible. Just like a lizard. His tongue flicked out between them, tasting the air. He took a few steps in their direction, but then stopped. His tongue flicked at the air one last time and then, without the barest hint of hesitation, he leapt so quickly he literally disappeared springing on his four bent limbs and vanishing.

Then there was the loud sound of gunfire, and bullets tore through the wall and several glass beakers to Rich's right. He instantly turned to the left to look into the back of the room.

There was a man there, kneeling in front of a chair, a semi automatic assault rifle in his hands. Had he been a guard, sleeping on the job perhaps? But where was…

Movement above Rich's head sent his gaze upwards. His jaw dropped even further, making it ache. Adrian was hanging from the CEILING. He seemed to be gripping in to the surface somehow. In a head-snapping movement, the Adrian-chameleon entity sent his tongue outward again and Rich could only barely follow it as the long strand of white flashed across the room.

The guard slumped over, and Rich saw then that the tongue had gone _through_ the man's chest. Adrian/chameleon retracted his tongue, and allowed him/itself to fall back to the ground with a _thump_!

No one said a word for several seconds. The sound of tinkling glass was all that could be heard in the room.

Then Collin stepped forward into the room, raised his hands, and cautiously approached Adrian. Adrian turned towards him as he approached, his luminescent white inner eyelids blinking.

"Hey… Adrian. What's uh…going on? You want a, uh drink maybe?. You're lookin a bit pale."

Adrian skittered backwards on his hands and feet across the lab table as Collin approached. Then he lifted his head suddenly, and the white membranes seemed to rescind from his eyes. Then his eyes shut completely, and he passed out, rolling off the table and onto the floor.

Rich and Collin spoke at exactly the same time.

"Hal…" They looked at each other in surprise.

Hal made a show of sighing heavily.

"Yea, yea I got it man." Hal went into the room, grabbed Adrian, and effortlessly slung him over one shoulder.

Rich looked critically at Adrian from where he hung on Hal's shoulder.

"Well, besides the whole weird possession, he looks in OK health."

Collin grinned. "I guess they didn't get a chance to give him too much of a probing."

Hal laughed at that, glancing at the guard slumped against the wall.

"Yeah, it looks like it ended up the other way around."

Collin laughed with him.

Rich frowned. It wasn't funny. He went over to the guard. The hole in his chest was small, maybe bullet sized. It was in his upper chest, and it looked like he was still breathing. So it missed his lungs. That was good. He decided not to comment on it, but he glowered at Collin and Hal as he led the way out of the room.

"I'll scout on ahead, and see if I can find a way out of here. Bring Adrian as quick as you can." He told them.

And before they could say anything in response to that, he chanted his words of power in Latin, and flew down the hall.

As Rich ran, he sincerely hoped he wasn't accumulating too much of that Paradox stuff Jeremy always talked about. He shouldn't be, since he was moving quickly, but not too much faster than what a human could achieve with years of training. It's just that it saved a lot of energy this way. Jeremy had warned him of doing too much in front of the technocrats though. Their extreme lack of belief in altering reality the way the Hermetics did made it a lot more dangerous somehow, apparently.

Rich enjoyed his run though. The strange leap-step he had to use was a change from the way he had ever moved before. He simply took some of the energy that was in the room and added it to his own movement. It was like having a little boost behind each step.

Not only that, but the area he was in was so strange. He knew he shouldn't be distracted by anything but what he was doing, but he couldn't help it. Some of the rooms he ran past seemed to have portals in them, with a whole variety of bizarre scenes behind them.

Rich quickly turned down one hallway, and then another and another and so on, seemingly without end. He kept careful track of his movement though, so he could make it back. Finally he came to stairs, with a door at the top. He stepped up to it quickly, and opened it slowly.

Not good.

The door opened into a cavernous room with machinery in it. At the far end of the room Rich could see the exit to the outside. But not 10 feet in front of him were several men in dark uniforms, all holding weapons of some kind, and some of the men had obvious metal enhancements. One of them held up a large looking gun, and a spiral of flame licked the air towards Rich.

Just as it touched the end of Rich's sleeve, he shouted in alarm and leapt backwards without thought, falling over the railing and hitting the ground hard below him.

He staggered to his feet, wincing, and shouted his words of power again, terrified. He ran down the hallway faster than he ever thought possible. It wasn't until he turned down the third hallway that he felt confident his legs weren't seriously injured from the fall. They did feel good and bruised though.

Barely a minute had passed when an alarm sounded. Only one minute after that he could hear the sound of many running footsteps behind him. Rich was so intent on maintaining as much distance between him and his pursuers that he only put the bare minimum into remembering the way he had come.

That was why it came as a surprise when he turned onto a long hallway and almost didn't notice Collin and the Adrian carrying Hal at the far end of the hall. He shouted as he ran.

"Run!"

That is when he felt the air behind him sizzle with heat, and then he heard the sound of gunfire. He dove forward, his momentum carrying him into a flying roll and then a skid across the ground.

When he collected himself enough to look up, he saw Hal, stepping in front of Adrian who was slumped on the ground behind him.

"So you want a fight do ya?" Hal asked, practically growling the challenge.

Collin grabbed his shoulder though, trying to pull him into a side room.

"Hal, this is not fistfight time" he said sounding terrified. Rich could hardly blame him. He was shaking himself. How did they get into this?

He never got to find out whether Hal would listen to reason though. His eyes bulged as he saw what was happening behind the brawny hockey player.

Hal saw him staring at him, and then looked behind Rich, where Rich knew the technocrats were equally silent. That was odd, certainly, that they weren't doing anything more to attack the intruders.

"WHAT? What is it? Why is everyone staring at me? Come on! FIGHT! Cowards!"

But Hal and Collin couldn't see it. They couldn't see that Adrian was on his feet again. And his eyes were ghostly white.

There was a blur of motion as Adrian sped on all fours up a wall and around Hal and Collin towards the Technocrats behind Rich.

Rich turned. They all raised their guns as the speeding apparition that was only half Rich's roommate, flew towards them. His tongue shot out of his mouth in a rapid series of strikes. He put two holes in each of them in a matter of seconds. Their screams pierced the air, and an arc of blood followed Adrian's tongue back into his mouth.

Adrian looked back at them, those large ghostly white eyes seeming to glow with something unholy, and the creature cocked his head to the side, offering no other comment to what he had just done. Then he turned back to the front and flew down the hallway, sometimes scampering across the walls, and sometimes the ceiling, with ungodly speed.

"Have I mentioned that I like this dream?" asked Collin, as they stepped over the fallen Technocrats and raced after the insane Adrian/Chameleon.

"Shut up" said Rich.

More screams greeted them as Rich led the way back to where he had just been near the stairs and cavern.

"Well," began Collin casually, "sounds like-"

"Shut UP" said Rich, cutting him off.

They finally reached the stairs and door Rich had been to before, and when they ran up into it-

It was a slaughterhouse. There were technocrats lying on the ground everywhere, and at the far end of it, towards the door, was the clearly possessed Adrian, who was flying all over the place while men shot at him wildly.

By the time they actually crossed the distance to Adrian, the combat he was in was over. As soon as it ended, he slumped to the ground again, unconscious. Hal picked him up without a word, and they ran towards the exit.

Rich heard loud metallic noises and glanced behind him

There was a huge hangar door next to the one they had just exited. The grated vertical door flung itself upwards, and several... things came out.

They were huge metal machines with arms and legs like a man. They marched toward where Rich stood, their heavy steps vibrating loud on the metal floor.

"Let's GO" said Rich, and he opened the door, running back out into the night with Collin, Hal, and the unconscious Adrian in tow. Rich closed the door quickly behind them, but he knew it wouldn't hold.

They flew across the clearing uphill, towards the forest. And Rich could only pray for another miracle.


	16. Chameleon Arc Finale: Old Friends

Old Friends

Part 4

Rich's miracle came in the form of a disembodied, genteel-sounding voice.

"Hello? Your minds are reading agitated. Are you quite alright?"

Rich looked around confusedly as he made for the tree-line. He didn't see Jeremy anywhere.

"Jeremy! Where are you man? I can't see you. Well whatever- we need help, we got Adrian out but your two agents are dead, and we are being chased. Any help you can send us would be _wonderful_."

Rich stayed behind Hal, who was supporting Adrian. Adrian had woken up during their run uphill; Hal was able to get him to at least walk quickly beside him. It was better than carrying him. In front of Hal was Collin. Rich supposed it was something of an unspoken agreement that they had to protect Hal since it would be hard for him to protect himself while supporting their other roommate.

Rich glanced over his shoulder, watching the 3 gigantic machines following him. One of them stopped, and raised a large metal arm that ended in a missile launcher instead of a hand.

Rich thought he could see red lights blinking in the "head" of the metal man. Targeting? Not good.

"Jeremy, if you can hear me, now would be an _excellent _time to-".

"Get to the tree line' Jeremy's voice said, though Rich couldn't even figure out what direction it came from. Was he talking in Rich's head?

"I'll have Michael open a portal for you there, but you'll need cover before you enter it."

"Listen, Hal" Rich began. But Hal cut him off.

"Yeah we got it Rich. Jeremy spoke to all of us."

"I suggest you hurry, then." Rich said, glancing worriedly over his shoulder.

Fortunately for them, the machines behind them seemed to have considerable trouble traversing the hill up to the tree line. Rich, Hal and crew made it with plenty of time to spare. They stepped through the silver oval hanging in the air, and into the open area in front of Michael's desk in the Library.

Jeremy was standing beside Michael's desk, looking the most agitated Rich had ever seen him.

That is to say- he looked mildly worried.

Hal was halfway through his story when Jeremiah cut him off.

"Michael" Jeremy said sharply, "Why isn't that portal closed?"

Rich turned to look over his shoulder. The portal was still there. Rich could see the forest where they had just been through the slit. And there was a large metallic figure moving towards them in a hurry.

Rich whipped his head back around to stare at Michael, who was tapping furiously at the half dozen monitors arrayed in front of him.

"I totally don't know man" Michael said, sounding anxious, "it's not workin' for some reason, I think some dude must be blockin' me."

Rich glanced around the room they were in. The chairs were all empty, there was no one else in the room any more except for them. And Rich did not think they could handle something like that. Where was everyone anyway?

"Oh SHIT" exclaimed Hal as he noticed the figure heading for them.

"He doesn't look happy". Collin muttered, half heartedly.

The figure lumbered through the gateway and into the Library. It only stood about seven feet tall, but it was still massive. The whole thing was a metallic blue color, and it looked heavily armored. The right arm ended in a muzzle of some sort, and the left hand was holding what looked like a giant silver mace.

As the thing stepped into the room, the tile floor beneath it cracked slightly from the weight.

Collin and Rich took several steps backwards, and scooted behind Michael's desk. Adrian already was seated at another desk, looking wild and confused. Michael was still doing something to his computer screens, and frowning. The music blaring out of his headphones wasn't turned down any though.

The machine stopped after it ducked through the portal. Its head swiveled to the right, and Rich could see what looked like a white reticule blinking in the thing's visor. It seemed to be staring at the far right wall and scanning to the left. When it reached the giant wood door to the library it stopped. Rich thought he saw the reticule turn red.

"Hey, idiot!" Hal said, pointing a finger at the metal giant. "Get the hell out of here!".

Rich looked towards Hal in surprise. He hadn't moved an inch from where he was before. He stood only a few feet from the thing that had come in the portal. And on top of that, he was _yelling_ at it. Did he have a death wish?

Rich got an itching feeling in the back of his mind. Was someone missing? He looked around. He didn't see Jeremy. Where had he gone? He didn't run away did he? That would be very bad.

Rich's attention was turned back to the thing in front of him, as it continued staring at the library door.

What was it doing?

Other than swiveling its head, the thing still hadn't moved an inch.

Jeremy emerged from the library door just then, juggling at least half a dozen gigantic books in his arms. He calmly laid them down on an empty table, opened one, and began skimming it with a finger.

Rich saw Hal turn towards Jeremy.

"You're reading BOOKS?!" Hal yelled at him, outraged. "What the hell?"

Jeremy ignored him. By his reaction, you'd think Hal hadn't spoken at all.

Rich was about to say something to Jeremy, when he noticed Adrian marching by him to stand in front of Hal.

"Listen" he began, addressing the metallic blue armor, "I've got no clue what's going on, but I'm guessing it's YOUR fault. So get OUT." Adrian raised his fists.

Rich sighed. He was almost as foolhardy as Hal.

The head turned down slightly to regard this newcomer. Then it raised its left hand and backhanded Adrian across the chest, the force sending him up at a dramatic angle and across the room. Adrian soared through empty space, and crashed into the sparring mats in the back. The armor then turned and flung its giant mace into the far left wall. It lodged there, stuck in the cement.

Fury warped Hal's features, and he walked forward, his amulet clasped around his right hand. The thing turned towards Hal, and lowered that right arm with the cannon on the end. It was now pointed directly at Hal, point blank.

But before anything else could happen, Rich heard loud, strangely resonant words from behind him. He turned.

It was Jeremiah. He was calmly walking towards the metal machine in front of the portal. In his arms was a massive open book, which he was reading from. It was in some language Rich didn't recognize. It sounded high and lilting and soft. Was this the angel language Dan had told him about?

Jeremy continued his slow walk forward, the words tumbling over themselves in the air. For such a soft sounding tongue, it sounded so powerful somehow. It was as if the ancients were all speaking, in a chorus, behind Jeremy's every syllable.

Suddenly Rich felt a strong breeze blow through his hair. The clothes of everyone in the room began flapping in it. And then a whirl of sand leapt out of Jeremy's book, expanding outward as it emerged. It hung in front of him for a moment, spinning round like a tornado of sand. Then it jumped forward and ripped straight into the armor in front of the portal.

For several seconds Rich couldn't see that metal thing in front of him at all. It was completely wrapped in swirling sand. Then he saw pieces of metal being torn outward in a circle from the machine. Sand swirling at several hundred miles an hour was tearing through the thing and ripping it clean.

After nearly a minute of this, the wind abated and the sand dropped, seeming to disappear. The figure fell backwards, pieces of blue metal littered the floor all around him and throughout the room.

Rich realized now that the figure was actually a man. He had been wearing the armor, it wasn't an empty machine. Most of his armor was gone now, especially the plates on his chest, his arms, and his helmet. Even his clothes were little more than torn rags, and Rich could see a hundred tiny scratches on his bare chest.

He was pretty huge, even without his armor. He had dark skin, and-

Rich's thoughts were interrupted in a big way when the man stood up. His jaw dropped.

The helmet fell off the man's head as he stood up, since it had been so damaged. He paused as he regained his feet, and looked at all of them.

Silence reigned supreme in the room.

It was Derek.

Their old roommate. He was the one who had attacked them. From a technocrat camp.

Blood dripped down Derek's face from cuts on his forehead as he regarded his old friends.

"You have no IDEA what you've gotten yourselves into." Derek Cho said, in his gruff voice. Then he turned and jumped back through the portal.

"DEREK" Hal growled loudly, making his way for the portal. But before he got there, the portal winked out of existence. Everyone swiveled to stare at Michael.

"YEAH! I got it!" Michael shouted in exultation. He was standing up, his head phones around his neck, blinking wires hanging from his hip, a bead of sweat on his forehead. But he did look pretty excited for his achievement.

"DAMNIT" Hal said, as he punched the ground in frustration.

Jeremy went over to Michael's terminal, and they quickly became engaged in an intense discussion about what went wrong.

The three roommates just sat there for a moment, staring at one another. None of them knew what to say. Derek was alive. And he was working for the Technocracy.

Collin was the first to break the silence. He tilted his head to one side and put a finger to his ear. A curious expression moved over his features.

"Does anyone else hear that beeping?" he asked.

Rich listened. He was right. There was a repeating high pitched noise coming from nearby. He scanned the room quickly. He couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

They spread out and searched the room. Rich went to the back near the sparring mats. Adrian was still there, shaking his head. Rich checked to make sure he was alright, and then continued searching. What could it possibly be? Had Derek left something behind?

After a few more minutes of fruitless searching, it hit him.

The mace. Of course. It was still stuck in the far left wall. Rich ran to it and gripped the handle experimentally. It was stuck fast.

"Over here!" Rich shouted, as he began pulling it as hard as he could. No luck.

Then Hal was there, and he pushed Rich out of the way roughly.

"Move" was all he said. He was clearly still very angry about Derek.

Collin and Adrian appeared over Rich's shoulder.

"Is it a bomb?" asked Collin nervously.

No one responded. It was a stupid question after all. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. Wordlessly Adrian stepped past Rich and began trying to loosen the cracked cement the weapon was lodged in so Hal could pull it out.

After five minutes of very little progress on the part of Hal and Adrian, the duration of the beeping grew shorter, and sounded more insistent. Nervously, Rich and Collin stepped back

Hal was practically frothing at the mouth now as he pulled at the handle 'til his face turned red.

"Maybe we should-" Rich started to say, but a voice behind him cut him off.

"What are you doing?" Jeremiah inquired from across the room, his voice sounding slightly edgy.

Abruptly the beeping stopped. Collin and Rich looked at each other, and then immediately ran and dove as far as they could, practically in tandem.

Rich looked up from his prone position behind a desk as Jeremiah sprinted across the room, waving an amulet in the air.

That was when Rich heard the deafening explosion, and felt intense heat wash over his body.

Rich and Collin left the apartment together to go visit Hal and Adrian at the hospital 2 weeks later . Rich shook his head as they approached the room his roommates were in. Hal and Adrian had made up a story about them playing with canisters of gasoline

Poor Adrian. This was not a great introduction to the House of Hermes. They had been lucky that Jeremiah had got close enough to shield them from at least some of the heat and force from the explosion. Otherwise they would have been killed. As it was they would be in the hospital for a few weeks. Not to mention the huge hole in the wall and ceiling of the Library's office room.

The medics at the Library had said that messing anymore with their Pattern (meaning the use of magic for healing) would be dangerous at that moment, since they had both already been changing themselves so much that day. They were already sore from those little cuts they came back with every day when using magic outside the chantry.

The strange thing was, even though Adrian was bewildered with everything that had happened to him, he still was always asking Rich and Collin many questions about Hermes. And especially about what the Chameleon had done while Adrian was unconscious in the Technocrat lab. Adrian claimed that he didn't remember anything about the entire episode.

As Collin and Rich entered, Hal and Corey sat up in their beds and greeted them. After a little small talk, there was an awkward silence.

Collin looked around the room, at the two injured roommates. He sighed loudly and stretched his arms behind his back. The devious smile on his face betrayed the farce, and told Rich what was coming.

'Whelp" Collin said from beside Hal's bed, "At least we found Derek". By looking at Hal's face, Rich knew Collin was lucky Hal couldn't move.


	17. Training

Chapter 7: Training

Adrian craned his head back to look up the towering platform above him and sighed deeply. It was at least 20 feet over his head. No one could jump that. The structure itself was pretty insane too. The legs were way too thin to support a wide platform like that 20 feet in the air.

But they were in a different world, or something. Adrian shook his head. What an insane month this had been. It had started off pretty well; he had finally been taken off the apartment waiting list at college, so now he could leave the dorm and move much closer to the parking lot.

Res. Ed had failed to mention the downside of the arrangement, however. Namely, the being shot at by people he didn't know and possessed by weird creatures from a different dimension.

Adrian saw a figure's head appear from behind the edge of the platform. It was Dan. He was waving, and Adrian heard him shout:

"Hey man, what's keeping you? There's so many hot chicks and FREE BEER up here!"

"What an ass" Adrian muttered to himself, as he backed up a ways and prepared to try that impossible jump again.

"Am not!" came the shout from above.

How was it that Dan could always hear him, wherever he was?

Adrian took a deep breath, banishing the pointless thought. He was way far behind the others in his dorm as far as ability, and that wasn't cool at all. He couldn't have people lording stuff over him.

When Adrian had backed up enough to get a good running jump, he regarded the platform once more. It was impossible. Screw what Dan had told him about expanding his limits, allowing his mind to believe that he could push his upward motion way higher than what he _thought_ he could do, this was just plain, freaking impossible.

Except, he had seen it done. About 5 minutes ago, by Dan, who actually _drank a can of beer_ on the way up. He made everything look like it was easier than breathing. It was maddening.

Adrian ran as hard as he could towards the tower, chanting something as he went. He still had no idea if he was pronouncing the thing right; it had so many vowels in it. Dan told him it was in the language of angels, and that it had power.

At the end of his run, Adrian leapt into the air as hard and as high as he could. He imagined the upward motion below him like a rubber band, just as Dan had taught him. He imagined the words he was shouting stretching the band, giving him more lift, shooting him up towards the platform. It was amazing, like having a rocket boost. The platform got closer and closer as Adrian rose through the air. Was that the edge of the platform there? Yes! Desperately throwing out a hand, Adrian just barely managed to snag the edge of the platform with his hands. He dangled there helplessly, his breath coming out in deep huffs.

Just as Adrian felt his grip slipping, Dan's fingers shot out from the twoer's edge and grabbed his shirt, yanking him up.

Sweet. Careful now. Adrian peered over the edge. He had come along way. That was awesome. It made the last month of landing on his ass worth it. He had felt like he was so far behind the others, and it had pissed him off. Now he didn't have to just listen to Hal brag all the time about how good he was getting.

Now he could brag too.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Adrian looked around at the top of the wooden platform he was on. It was empty except for Dan.

"Hey man, where's all the chicks?" He said, keeping a straight face.

Dan pointed to his head. "Imagination" he said, with a wink.

Adrian rolled his eyes.

Dan frowned then, and pointed to Adrian's hand.

"Dude, your bleeding".

Adrian looked down. His hand was bleeding a little. Must've been from where he had snagged the edge of the platform. He shrugged, and was about to work on a way to get back down to earth, when he suddenly felt an odd throb in his hand. It wasn't painful,; but it was strong.

The wound looked strange somehow. Suddenly, Adrian felt really weird. His vision blacked out for a moment. When it came back, he saw a network of rivers, each crisscrossing into the next. He was looking down on the rivers, as if floating above them. In the rivers were small circular shapes, like rafts. Around the rivers, around him, it was dim and enclosed, like a cave. But the ceiling of the cave seemed semi translucent. Light came through a little, but Adrian couldn't make anything out. Adrian's vision seemed to sweep across the rivers, towards where they were flowing. Abruptly, the cave ended in a ragged line, and light poured in. The opening of the cave looked like it had been chewed away by something violent.

Wait.

That's when it occurred to Adrian to pay more attention to the water. It was a copper-red. Criss-rossing in canals, dribbling out a torn opening-

His cut. He was looking at his own hand, INSIDE it. At the arteries.

His vision blinked again, and then turned back to normal. Adrian shook his head.

"Dude!" Dan was saying, poking him.

"What happened?" Dan said when Adrian looked at him again."You totally zoned out."

Adrian described it to him. Dan nodded, interested.

"Wow. It looks like you have some natural talent with the Life sphere. That's cool. I'll have to get someone who can teach you more later. This kind of thing happens sometimes when your tearing down the cobwebs in your brain."

Adrian looked at his hand again, watched the blood drip down. The world was a whole lot bigger than he thought.

Rich felt unusually chipper as he passed through the window in Hal's bedroom and into the Library. He swung his headless hockey stick in an easy motion in front of him, like he was leading a marching band. He saw Adrian approaching him from the direction of the stairs, staring at his own hand.

"Hey Adrian. Something the matter with your hand?"

"Hi Rich. No, it-". Adrian stopped, frowning.

"It's hard to explain. It's cool though."

Rich was about to say something else, but Adrian walked past him, still looking at that hand. That was odd. Oh well.

Rich went upstairs, and into a room that Dan had told him about before. Apparently this room was constantly being changed, as training for people practicing the Matter Sphere. And Dan was taking advantage of that for his training.

Upon entering though, the room was empty. It was just Dan and an empty table. Well, mostly empty. There was a white towel on top of the table. Behind him, the door shut.

"Hey Rich, you ready for a little training?" Dan said lightly. "It's going to be tough today."

Rich nodded and set himself in front of the table, his hands holding the hockey stick out in front like a katana.

"I am always ready." He said.

Dan nodded gravely.

"Your task today is to expand not only your abilities, but the way in which you use them. Controlling kinetic forces has a wide range of uses. But beyond that, one must always think whether it is _necessary_ to use magic, for doing so in the real world is always dangerous. The way you accomplish this initially is simple: Do not get hit."

Rich nodded, bouncing on the back of his heels, ready.

Rising from his chair behind the table, Dan lifted the towel in front of him. He held it at the middle so the towel dangled down like a ghost, it's edges just kissing the table's surface. Rich had seen him do this before. It was a foci for summoning. He was calling objects from a different location, perhaps a back store room.

Rich watched tentatively as Dan lifted the towel, gave it a slight jerk, and then caused objects to begin falling out of it and onto the table.

Immediately, Dan began grabbing these and throwing them at Rich with a dizzying speed. Rich was deflecting almost before he knew what had happened.

Only dimly did Rich realized that the objects being thrown at him were i Frisbees /i . And Dan had acted like it would be dangerous.

Soon Dan increased his pace, and the air was thick with orange saucers. Now Rich had no choice.

"Celeriorum me fac!" He shouted, whirling through the air as fast as he could, knocking a path through the Frisbees and dodging the ones he missed.

But now Dan's pace increased AGAIN. Rich would've thought that'd be impossible a second before.

Now the air looked like an almost solid block of orange layers. Rich had no idea how Dan timed it so the Frisbees didn't even really touch each other at all. He could only barely make Dan out through the mess in the air. His teacher looked like a blur, running back and forth, flinging things at seemingly all heights and angles.

But Rich had little time to think about it, as he whirled in all directions, flinging his staff wildly. But even so, Frisbees kept bonking into his head every time he had to swing low to bat away those spinning for his feet.

In a short amount of time a headache blared in Rich's forehead. He was going to need another solution. He could barely see anything and he didn't have time to think. there were so many all around him. It was all he could do to just knock down half of them. The others kept hitting his face and arms.

Finally, an idea formed. He had to clear the way somehow to get to Dan. And the force from the Frisbees was too much to get too far forward at this rate. Every time he swung his staff and tried to step forward to run, he got nailed in the face. So what needed to happen, is for things to slow down.

He concentrated on the area in front of him, and shouted his other phrase in Latin. The one for slowing down objects. He had just learned it a few days ago. It didn't slow it down a lot, because slowing something else's kinetic force that was going too fast was like trying to grab a rope on the back of a train when you were standing beside it. This was more like tossing crates in front of the train.

Even so, he could feel his words settling down to affect the kinetic force behind a whole line of Frisbees coming towards him. They slowed, and the ones around them hit them, causing a whole area to become clear. Rich ran straight down the now open lane, and dove over the table, rolling and landing behind Dan. He turned to face Dan, just in time to get nailed in the face with a Frisbee. Rich fell over and swore.

Dan came over to where Rich lay on the ground. Rich could tell he was trying not to laugh.

"That was good Rich. Remember that you have to craft your magic for the right situation. There are always ways out, If you can just think it through. Just running around crazily all the time is fun, but not always too effective."

Rich took Dan's offered hand, and stood up.

Frustration boiled in his veins.

"There were too many of them though! I just couldn't react fast enough." He could see everything, but he just couldn't get his mind to process it all fast enough. It was maddening.

"It's ok Rich, that's what the training is for man. Relax."

Rich sniffed. Easy for him to say.

Then Dan's face got serious. This indicated to Rich that Dan was about to say something profoundly stupid.

"It takes a brave dude, to stare down a pack of wild Frisbees." He said gravely.

Rich rolled his eyes. Sometimes he really wished Dan would grow up.

Looking at his master, a thought bubbled to the surface, linger in Rich's mind. How could the guy always react so fast to everything?

Obviously Rich needed to learn a lot more.

Dan noticed Rich's expression and he dropped his own fake one.

"Your reaction time is bothering you, isn't it?" Dan paused for a moment, thoughtfully. Then he said, "I think I know someone you can meet to help with that."

7-2

Collin focused on his new ring. It was the one that Dan had given him for completing the last mission. Well, sort of completing it anyway. They got Adrian out, that was the important thing right? Why squabble over the tiny details?

You know, like getting ambushed and losing two of their members to snipers, and then allowing their Library to be half destroyed.

Hardly worth mentioning, really.

But it had turned out ok. Mostly. And anyway, Collin had bigger things to worry about at the moment.

Like tennis balls. Lots of them.

"Anywhere else -" Dan began, his voice coming, from directly behind Collin. Collin swiveled immediately, trying to see where Dan was. But by the time he looked behind, Dan was already gone.

"-this would be impossible" came Dan's voice again, this time from up and behind Collin's head. He turned around as fast as he could. There he was. Up on a platform in the corner of this changeable training room they were in.

Dan's arm was already moving. A tennis ball shot out of his hand with a lot more speed than would ever be possible in real life. Collin could barely even twitch an eye before it bounced off his head. It hurt, but he shook it off, and tried to track what Dan was doing. He was doing something with his hands again. He was going to teleport. Collin focused on his ring. The fire emanating from the lighter in front of him intensified into a small ball with tentacles coming out from the middle. A shape he found useful for controlling more carefully.

"Why impossible?" Collin asked, keeping his body tense and ready.

A voice came from directly behind him again.

"Too vulgar. 'Dox would blow me up."

Collin sensed movement out of the corner of his eye. He immediately sent a flame tentacle directly over his shoulder, rolling forward at the same time so he wouldn't hit himself.

He turned immediately, to see if he had hit anything. That's when a tennis ball hit him in the head again from his left.

Collin rubbed his head, and looked up.

Dan was standing next to him, laughing.

"Missed me!"

Crap. How come he could never hit that doofus, or even get close to him? It was impossible, like always.

That was when Collin got an idea. He noticed that Dan was keeping his eyes on the Squidy's tentacles. Not on the flame from his lighter. What if he… Yes, it could work. Nevermind that Collin had never gotten two to work together in tandem before, he could do it.

He focused on the ring, willed it to transfer his power into the lighter in his hand. Suddenly, a second sphere of flame burst out from the root of the flame. Now two Squidies floated in the air. Collin immediately made the second one lash out with all tentacles.

Dan's eyes grew wide, as the flame passed by his shirt. Too close. A little flame burst into existence where the tentacle brushed him.

Collin jumped to his feet, dropped one of the Squidies, and focused on the fire on Dan's shirt, willing it through the ring to get bigger, to grow.

He knew from experience that if he didn't press his advantage with Dan, he would get hurt, every time. Plus there were people watching him, Dan wouldn't really get hurt: badly.

Dan leapt backwards, his hands flashing up. The flame on his shirt grew bigger, Collin could feel the pattern in the flame, feel it expanding, burning new materials, turning cloth into floating embers.

Just as the fire was growing massive, Collin saw a small gray, oval shape glowing over Dan's fingers. What was that?

Abruptly the fire winked out. Dan landed on the ground, and flashed to Collin's right. He was moving almost faster than Collin could see. Normally, Collin would lose him as soon as he started moving like that.. But this time Collin was able to keep an eye on him. He felt strangely sharp, aware of his surroundings in a way he hadn't before. It was almost as if he just knew where Dan was, regardless of whether his eyes were on him or not.

Collin lashed out with a tentacle, trying to catch the flashing blur that was Dan. But he was too fast. He couldn't control the flame quick enough. Dan circled around Collin, and he couldn't quite turn his head fast enough to follow that speed-demon.

It was only a matter of time. Dan got directly behind him. But…

Collin could swear he still saw him without even turning his head. It was impossible but-

He didn't think, he sent the tentacle straight back towards-

But Collin lost his sight of Dan, however he had gotten it, halfway through. His tentacle faltered.

He fell onto his face as a torrent of tennis balls seem to pile on top of him.

There were easily thousands of them. It took Collin a full minute to dig himself out, since he lost his lighter during the fall. Faintly, he heard Dan's voice. It sounded… different. And not just because of the muffling. It didn't sound like your usual chipper goofy Dan. It sounded- well, Collin didn't know how to describe it. Different.

"That was good Collin. Very good control, you've gotten better. You can't see behind you yet. At least not quite. As we found out last time, I can't always protect you. You have to learn Collin. It's very important. I- ".

This was strange, Dan sounded different- like.. sad, or something. It was right then that Collin managed to break through the pile of tennis balls. He took a big gulp of sweet 02.

Dan was standing right there.

"Well anyway, here you go man. These will help you see behind you. Cool huh?"

He sounded goofy again. Weird.

Collin took the glasses from Dan. They had a red tint.

Cool.

"You have a little talent with Correspondence Collin. But you have to focus to use it. These glasses should help. Ok man?"

Collin nodded. This was getting cool.


	18. Training Hal

Hal couldn't BELIEVE Wiz was doing his second tier Forces and Prime exam this way. It was crazy. But what the hell, it would probably be fun.

"Ok, is everybody ready?" Wizard asked, projecting his voice so everyone in the room could hear. The room in question was pretty cavernous, and tall. It had lots of building like structures on it, some tall like mini skyscrapers, some squat like small houses. There were lots of little places to hide and stand on.

Hal was currently in an open area in the front. There were at least a dozen other mages all around him, surrounding him. And in a moment, they would all be trying to kill him. Well, not KILL. But knock him flat anyway. Hal tensed. This was nuts.

But that didn't mean he wasn't looking forward to it. He clutched the amulet around his neck. Time to show everyone what he could REALLY do.

A chorus of 'ready's met Hal's ears.

Wizard nodded.

"Ok, Good then. Now remember, use stun/delay magic ONLY. Dan, this means you."

Dan suddenly popped into existence in front of where Wizard was standing by the door. His arms were crossed and he was frowning. "Fine, ruin ALL my fun." Then he turned to Hal and winked "Good Luck." With that, popped out of existence again.

Wizard projected his voice once more.

"OK ALL, WAIT FOR MY SIGNAL".

Then he turned to Hal.

"Ok Hal, you know what to do. Just find the small node, that will be somewhere in this room. There's a time limit of 10 minutes. This is for level 2 hermetic status, which all of your roommates have already achieved, so I'm told. The council decided to let you do it this way, instead of through a tournament since you completed that difficult mission. And believe me Hal, convincing them to let you do it this way was hard enough. They will be watching the whole affair using that wonder over there."

He pointed.

Hal furrowed his brow. Wonders were objects that had magic inside them. They could be used by anyone, regardless of skill, and with little fear of paradox backlashes. The thing Wiz was pointing to was a mirror. Hal had heard of it. Apparently if you had the master mirror, then you could see stuff coming from all the little mirrors.

Hadn't they ever heard of video cameras? Apparently the Hermetic council wasn't too big on modern technology.

"I will remain here as an observer, Hal. You may think of me as merely part of the playing field if you wish. Good luck. Remember, all you need do is find the node, and bring it to me. No need to get involved in unnecessary conflict. I would avoid getting knocked unconscious though, that could lower your chances." His mouth quirked with a sly smile.

Hal grunted.

"Tell that to THEM". He said, gesturing to the room. There was no one there anymore. Great. They were all going to try ambushing him. Super.

Wizard raised his hand.

"Level 2 Hermetic Examination… BEGIN!" p 

Hal turned around and pulled out the little glass he used for Prime and peered into the group of buildings. He didn't see anything. No one was moving at all. Apparently they were going to wait for him.

He felt a little prick on the back of his neck though. It meant that either a node was nearby, or someone was using magic. Or both.

He walked cautiously towards the middle of the room where a few towering structures stood in a tight circle. Hal peered up at them as he approached.

"Yo, is anyone up there?" He called, cupping hands over his mouth.

No answer. p 

"Uh, yeah. If any of you up there have a node, can you just throw it down here? It's prolly heavy. I'll just take it off your hands…".

Suddenly something fell on the ground behind him with a "clink". Surprised, Hal turned around. You gotta be kidding! Had someone really just-

It was a small round object, and looked like it was made of glass. Hal squinted at it through his looking glass. It was glowing faintly, and Hal thought he could make out a pattern of Prime inside. Was it really a node?

The Prime pattern inside increased in complexity and created a Forces pattern. Hal recognized it. That was no node. He better-

A moment later, a blinding light of pure white burst out of the small sphere in all directions, blinding Hal completely. But he was already jumping out of the way. He cancelled his own gravity and pushed off the floor hard. After about five seconds of zooming up the side of a building and trailing his fingers along its edges, he felt the wall of the building beside him give way to an edge. Then he let his hold on the amulet slip, and gravity gripped onto him once more. He grabbed the ledge, and pulled himself up. Whoever did that light thing would most likely follow it up with something else shortly.

Sure enough, there came a BOOM, from directly Below Hal a second later. It was a stun explosion. The pressure without the flame or heat. You simply summoned a light gas, like helium, and compressed it with surrounding heavier gas, and then let that heavier gas go. The gas inside blew out just like an explosion. That was probably Dan. He had shown the trick to Hal before, during his Prime training. Wizard thought it would be good for Hal to memorize the patterns for some common Force tricks, in case he ever went up against an opposing force mage.

That punk thought he was funny, giving Hal a fake node.

The light winked out below. Hal could see again. But there was no one there.

He stayed low, and crouched behind a little pillar thing that was on top of the building platform. He looked around the platform he was on. It was empty.

Hal squinted through his looking glass. His eyes widened. There were three people on the platform across from his. They all had books out that they were reading from. Between them there was what looked like a pre-prepared seal: a geometric pattern on paper. They were weaving something around it together, something huge.

He could see the Force pattern forming and affecting the air around him. The weave was heating and cooling the air rapidly, causing it to spin.

"Are they actually-" Hal began aloud, his eyes wide. He leapt for the edge, and let himself drop off.

He zoomed downward, the air flapping by his face and his stomach doing dances in his belly.

Suddenly the weave behind him coalesced.

It was a tornado. They made a freaking TORNADO right around him. It immediately tore into the building Hal had just dropped from. Debris was thrown everywhere. Hal pulled on his gravity through his amulet, forcing it to let got of him. Then he brought his feet in, and pushed off of the crumbling building.

He cruised through the air, moving out and down, due to the few seconds gravity had affected him. Gravity and inertia were good friends, after all.

The high speed winds were less than a couple yards away still, and he could feel that destructive force tearing through the building behind him as he soared out.

It was a really good idea to let himself be pulled toward the ground to get away form that thing. But it was still too dangerous. He had to get close to the ground before he let gravity take a hold of him again or he'd go splat when he got there.

Wizard was in front of him now, down below. Hal was already heading in that direction, flying through the air from his previous momentum

Behind him, that tornado was MOVING. It spun round and round with a roar, and its funnel tip traveled from the top of the building down, to the ground. It tore up the wooden floor in a line when it got there.

Just as the tornado was hitting another building practically right next to Hal, he let gravity hold him again. Unfortunately, the ground wasn't very close yet. He fell down to the floor, sliding and bouncing somewhat painfully right in front of Wizard.

"Hal, are you ok?" Wizard said, looking concerned

Debris from the second building flew everywhere around him.

This was insane, he had to-

Suddenly Hal got a weird feeling, like a tingling; a feeling of warmth.

He took the looking glass back out from where he had put it in his pocket just before jumping.

There was blue fire, a tiny amount. It came from Wizard's pocket.

Should've known.

He stood up, and walked towards Wizard as calmly as he could.

Which wasn't very. Since there was a freaking TORNADO behind him. p 

Just as the tip was approaching, and Hal felt the winds picking him up off the ground, He jumped forward and put a hand into Wizard's pocket.

"Hey wiz. Here's your node." He shouted over the winds, without irony, trying not to notice what was quickly approaching him from behind.

Wizard smiled and put up a hand. The tornado dissipated, release chunks of concrete and wooden splinters to the ground in a tumult of roaring and shattering.

"Good Hal. You anticipated moves based on what you could see in the Pattern. And you used your understanding of gravity fairly well. You pass. Nice job."

Dan appeared beside Wizard.

He was laughing.

"Did you see that? That was some good work. And it wasn't even ME this time."

"Those crazy bastards, they could've KILLED me." Hal said, fuming. p 

Dan gave him a knowing look.

"Obviously, you need a drink."


	19. A Little Luck

Chapter 8-1

"Ok. So we all made level two now. We all know how to do new stuff, why don't we USE it?" Collin was saying, strutting ahead of Hal with those annoying red-tinted glasses on.

Even though he was annoying, he was right.

Yeah" Hal said, clenching a fist. "We should go after that punk Derek again. He needs some sense pounded into him."

Rich, who was walking next to Hal on the sidewalk, cocked one eyebrow.

"You saw what happened last time. We only made it out of there because of Michael. We clearly aren't ready yet."

"Speak for yourself" Hal said, pushing Rich off him. He was walking too close, after all.

Rich stopped, causing the group of them to walk past him. Hal, Rich, Collin and Adrian were on the way back to their apartment after classes. It had been a long day, and that sissy wanted to start something now?

Fine with him.

Hal stopped as well and turned to face Rich, fingering the amulet in his pocket. Adrian turned around and held up his hand.

"Whoa, chill. It's not like Dan would let us go after them again anyway. You've asked him enough times already, haven't you Hal? We have to prove ourselves first, obviously."

Hal snorted. That punk wasn't worth it anyway. He turned his back on Rich deliberately and kept walking.

"And how do we do that?" He asked in a low growl. "We all make level 2, we accomplish a tag that TWO level 5 guys couldn't do, luck or no, and that's still not enough?"

"We could do a tag ourselves…" Rich offered, hurrying to catch up with the group.

Hal pointedly didn't say anything in response, pretending Rich wasn't there.

"Tag?" Adrian asked pointedly. "What is that? Like a mission? You mean like the one you took when you came to find me?"

"We didn't take that tag, we only helped out. But yes. They are missions that Blue House needs done. They usually have rewards like money or items. But mostly we could do them to prove our capability." Rich finished.

"Yeah right. I like that actually." Hal said, forgetting he was mad at Rich, "We'll make those guys see that we're a lot stronger than that last time."

Hal bumped into Collin, who had suddenly stopped walking.

"Hey! Watch it." He said. Collin didn't respond. He was looking off to the left.

"What is it, Collin?" Rich asked.

"Uh, I think someone pissed off the mob" Collin said, pointing.

Hal resisted the urge to point out what a dumb thing that was to say aloud, and looked over to where Collin was indicating.

There were a group of four people standing on a bridge. Hal knew there was a river below that bridge, a fairly deep one. But he couldn't see it from here. The four men held down a fifth figure. Hal couldn't make out what the victim looked like, except that he looked like he was probably a guy, and his hands were tied behind his back. There were also cement blocks around each of his feet. The mob still used the cement shoe treatment?

They were shouting something Hal couldn't hear. Probably gloating. The figure they tied up wasn't moving at all. Was he even conscious? No, he had to be. They wouldn't bother to go through all that trouble if he wasn't conscious. So why was he not struggling?

Before any of them could even think about making a move towards the bridge, the group of men heaved the hapless stranger over the side.

There was no splash.

Hal and his friends looked at each other.

Then they took off for the other side of the street so they could look over the fence at the river below. He heard Rich shout some warning about being seen but he didn't care.

There was a wood fence that blocked people off from the river. But Hal managed to peer over it. There was a boat there. It looked like a cargo boat of some kind. The man had landed on one of the big barrels, breaking it open. There was a blue liquid leaking out of it. Hal read the side of the barrel. It said 'Solvent'.

The cement on the victim's shoes was already dissolving. Only his feet had landed in the stuff, so he didn't need to burn his skin.

Hal noticed that another barrel had been knocked over from the victim's fall. The man hadn't landed on that one, only knocked it over. There was something silver glittering from the spilled barrel.

Scissors.

The man kicked what remained of the cement free, and then stooped to pick up the scissors. He cut his bonds free with them. Then he waved good-naturedly at the men who had just tried to drown him in the river. Hal could make out enough to know they were staring at him slack-jawed.

The near-victim's face still wasn't quite visible, but he managed to catch that the man had a playing card in his mouth. And then his boat passed under another bridge and Hal lost sight of him.

"Wow." Collin commented. "That, uh- that was lucky."

Hal and his roommates went through Hal's window the next day to visit Dan at the Library, and hopefully get a tag. When they found Dan, they told him what they had seen.

Dan scratched his head.

"That's odd, I don't think the Euthanatos operate in this region. He must be an orphan or at least acting on his own." Dan said after Hal had told the story.

"Euthanatos?" Hal asked.

"Orphan?" Rich asked.

"Angel pimp?" Collin piped in innocently, pretending it was a viable question.

Everyone ignored him.

"Orphans are mages who taught themselves magic. They didn't learn through a tradition. The Euthanatos are another tradition. Sorta like Hermes. Way creepier though. We specialize in Forces, and they are the masters of Entropy. Theynever let you forget it either." He frowned.

"Ok. So what is this Entropy thing? Is it what he used to escape drowning?"

"Maybe he was just really lucky" Collin offered.

Hal decided against swatting him.

Not worth the trouble.

Dan laughed.

"Actually, that's the point. He WAS really lucky. Entropy has to do with the events and relationships that string together the world. Part of Entropy is about chances. While, technically a boat carrying strong dissolving liquid and scissors that passes at exactly the right moment is i possible /i it's just very unlikely. But with the sphere of Entropy you can change that."

Collin stuck out his tongue.

"Told you he was lucky" he said spitefully.

Hal cracked a knuckle and Collin gave him a suspicious glance.

"So do you have a tag for us?" Rich asked, sounding impatient.

"Sure" Dan replied. He walked over to a wall in the library where the tags were all stored. They were all sticking out of shelves that were marked 1-10. He traced a finger down and picked out one from the "level 2" shelf. He pulled out the tag, which was attached to a scroll. He handed it to Rich.

"Here you go, this one should be good to start with. We got a rumor that a lone mage was to blame for some crazy things that have been happening recently in a sensitive area. We just need you to find out who he is, what he's doing, and any other information you can. Don't try to do anything else."

Rich nodded as he read over the scroll.

"Ok then, everything else you need should be there. Take that scroll to Michael when you're ready and he'll cook up a portal for you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go do boring stuff." Dan frowned, and then sauntered off.

"So?" Hal said to Rich. "Does it tell us where to find this guy, and what he looks like?"

"It just has some coordinates of a casino that some Hermetic contact says he frequents. As for description…" Rich scanned the page. "No picture, just that he keeps a playing card with a skull on it in his shirt pocket."

"He's not trying to be too inconspicuous now is he?" Adrian remarked with a laugh.

And with that, they all went to Michael and got a portal in an alley near the casino.

They weren't carded when they walked in, which had been a concern of Rich's. The casino floor was large, and the space itself was cavernous, housing a balcony where people from the attached hotel could watch the idiots lose all their money.

It was only Saturday afternoon, so it wasn't crowded or anything, but finding anyone in this place would be difficult. The casino had a fairly loud background roar of people talking, chips clinking, and slot machine bells going off.

After an hour or two Collin and Adrian got bored, so tried their luck on the slot machines. Collin managed to win twenty dollars.

He was holding the wealth of coins up in front of Hal's face and laughing, when Hal happened to notice someone coming in through the sliding doors. He couldn't see much of the newcomer due to people being in the way, but he could see the boots. Normally a glossy black, they were stained with white and blue.

"Guys" Hal said, motioning to the door. He had a feeling about this one.

The man walked by a roulette table that was blocking their view and came into plain sight.

He was tall, sleek looking, with moussed black hair. He also had a tight black shirt on, with a skull-faced playing card in the pocket.

Something itched in the back of Hal's mind. That face looked familiar. And those boots…

That was it! They used to have cement and solvent on them! That's what the blue and white stains were. It was the guy from the river.

He took one look at the four of them staring at him, and then took off running.

Apparently he knew when his luck had run out.


	20. Goes a long way

8-2: …Goes a long way.

"Stay on him!" Adrain shouted. Rich responded with a: "Got it!" as he followed his quarry across the casino floor.

Hal followed up the rear as everyone raced after skull-card dude. The lunatic practically face planted against one of those big metal bars on one of the doors that lead outside. The door swung open grudgingly, and the man lurched out in a stumbling run.

Rich was out the door in a shot; clearing the closing metal door without even touching it. That was impressive considering they were a good 50 feet away. Hal suspected foul play. Looking around, it didn't seem that anyone noticed though.

Adrian was right behind him, slamming the door back open almost the exact second that it clicked back into place again. Collin and Hal made there way towards the door at a jog.

Two large men in suits with ear pieces stepped smoothly in front of them, halting their way.

Briefly, Hal considered merely shifting his weight into a hockey check instead of stopping. Instead he decided to avoid any more of a ruckus than what they already had, and slowed down. He could take one of them, but not two. And Collin wouldn't be of any help. He raised a finger to point it at the two goons.

"Outta the way. We're leaving."

"Halt!" One of the goons said, placing a palm up in between them with haughty melodrama.

Hal gritted his teeth and considered. This was retarded. If he bowled over the one on the right, it was a straight shot to the door. He glanced over his shoulder; everyone in the casino was staring at them.

_Damnit_, he thought. He edged to one side. Maybe he could run around him.

"Whoa whoa whoa. _Gentlemen_." Collin said putting both hands up in peace, a goofy grin slapped on his features. He slowly lifted one hand up to his ear and stuck a finger into the lobe, clearing it out in an exaggerated gesture.

"Did I hear you right?" He held up a stiff arm with the palm forward in imitation. "_Halt!"_ He mimicked.

"You're not helping." Hal growled at him.

"That's right wise guy. Now come with us and you can explain to the manager why you caused a scene in his casino."

Collin made a show of considering for a moment. Then he tapped a finger on his nose.

"That's one way of looking at it yeah. But consider this. My friend over here is getting pretty mad. If this turns into a fight, ask yourself this: Do you really think anyone would believe it was a good idea to manhandle us with your…tools, when we were going to leave your casino of our own accord? If this comes down to a law suit, I wonder who's salaries it will come out of?" He made a grand show of looking around like a detective going _Hmmmm_ a lot. He held up his hand and closed one eye, using the other to peer at various people on the floor as if out of an imaginary magnifying glass. Eventually his gaze rested back on the goons.

"Cuz I got a pretty good idea if you fellows don't."  
The two glanced at eachother and frowned.

"So I ask you once again, '_Halt!_' ?" He feigned the dude's voice again, and then held up his hands in a shrugging gesture, raising his eyebrows and sticking out his bottom look as if to say 'You sure about this?'.

One of the goons grunted.

"Fine. Get the hell out of here. We have your pictures on tape. Neither you nor any of your…associates are welcome here anymore. You understand."

"Fabulous!" Collin said and led Hal quickly out of the casino.

"Collin.." Hal began after the anger had subsided a bit as they ran around the corner looking for their friends.. "That was…surprisingly well thought out. Not like you at all".

Collin feigned being offended. He reached down and snagged something on the ground as they ran by it.

"When it comes to logistical…ness, I'm the… "King". He put what he had grabbed on his head. It was one of those crowns from Burger King. How did he always find this crap?

He put his thumbs up and pointed to the crown. Hal knocked it off his head.

"No, you're an idiot. Where did they go?"

A car screeched in from of them. Adrian shouted at them from the driver's side, wheeling the window down. The car looked suspiciously familiar.

"Come on get in! That crazy running fool Rich is keeping an eye on the skull guy but he can't keep it up."

Hal swung open the front door and Collin grabbed the back. They climbed in and shut the doors at almost the same exact time, in tandem.

"Adrian, something you wanna tell me?."

Adrian grinned.

"Oh, right. Uh, you dropped your keys."

Hal put his hand on the back of the driver's side seat.

"Yo, get out. My car: I drive."

Adrian made a pleading gesture.

"Aw, come on. Do we really have time for that? We have to catch up." He pointed to a trail of smoke a block away that could only be Rich.

"Alright, let's catch up." Hal growled, gripping his seat. He wanted to have a word with that skull guy, anyway. Up close and personal.

Adrian gunned it, screeching out of the casino parking lot at a decent clip. He rolled over the parking lot divider into the street beyond at a decent clip too.

The bump hit Hal hard, causing him to whack his head on the ceiling.

"Yo, watch it! This is my car, jerk! Besides, the last thing we need now is cops."

"Yeah yeah." Adrian said, rolling the wheel gleefully as he took a turn hard. "No cops around right now, so I guess we're ok, right?"

Hal made a noncommittal noise.

After a minute or two of…unconventional driving-they caught up with Rich. Somehow he was lagging behind

Adrian slowed so to pull even with Rich. Fortunately there didn't appear to be anyone on the street in this area so Rich's slight tweaking of Newtonian physics were going largely unnoticed.

That didn't mean that he was paradox free though. Hal opened down a window.

"Dude! I thought you were supposed to be fast? How is that joker outrunning you?"

Somehow Rich managed to Sigh even while he was huffing and puffing wit the exertion of running.

"Well, as I'm sure you're aware-" Rich began.

Hal cut him off.

"Ok great whatever, just get in before dox makes your head explode. Obviously you're not gonna catch him like that."

Rich nodded in grim agreement and managed to open the back door and climb in without Adrian having to slow down.

Collin scooted over in the back seat, and was just buckling himself in, when he sniffed at the air for a moment. Then he turned and peered at Rich.

"Hey! Uh, Rich, buddy-what's with that gray crap you got all over you?"

At that Hal turned around. Sure enough, Rich was covered in what looked like a smattering of strong-smelling, grey chunks.

Rich was about to open his mouth to respond when Collin gave one of his 'Eureka!' expressions.

"Kitty litter! It's kitty litter isn't it?"

Rich narrowed his eyes with everyone staring at him, including Adrian in the rear view mirror.

"It's of no consequence. Look, Adrian, our quarry just turned into that alleyway up ahead If I'm not mistaken, this vehicle is small enough to fit inside. We could trap him!"

Adrian nodded slowly, still peering at Rich's mirror reflection out of the corner of his eye. But, he cut the wheel as they reached the aley, and slowly creeped in.

The man was waiting for them there. He just stood there, mid-way down the alley. He was close enough that Hal could see his greasy hair, his day old stubble, and the single playing card that he held up high in one hand before them.

It had a grinning skull on the face of it. He seemed to be concentrating rather hard.

"It looks like he's trying to take a dump." Collin chimed in helpfully.

Adrian tapped the gas and the car jerked forward.

"Just get me close enough." Hal said quietly to Adrian. He jabbed at a button on the dashboard and the sunroof started opening with a mechanical whir.

"Something's not right." Rich said from behind.

"Yeah I see what you mean." Collin mused. "Look behind that guy, this alleyway is open on the other side. Why is he just standing there? He could keep running."

"Not just that.' Rich began again. "Something…wait. Do you see that?" Rich pointed toward the man's shoulder.

Hal was about to tell Rich that he had no clue what he was yammering about, when he saw it. A little speck of something. It looked like-

Rubble.

"Back up! Back up now!" Rich shouted.

Adrian had enough sense to not question it. He shifted the car into reverse and peeled backwards out of the alley.

Hal looked up.

The walls over their heads were crumbling, pieces of brick and mortar raining down. The skull man gestured sharply with the playing card, and then rolled backwards out of the alley. There was a loud CRACK, and a huge section of the wall broke away and tumbled towards their heads.

Tires spun on asphalt, the odor of sublimated rubber filled the air. Hal's car shot backwards while that big section of brick wall fell toward them. Hal could make out the mortar and brick clearly; he even saw chewed gum in between two of the bricks. Everything slowed down to a crawl, and all Hal could think was: It can't end like this.

Then the wall piece slammed into the ground right in front of them; Hal could watched it spiral right in front, inches away from the windshield, then inches away from the hood as Adrian gunned the car backwards, right out from under calamity.

A cloud of dust shot up all around them. Some of it made it through the air filters as Hal's car squealed backwards and out of the alley in a crazy, dust-obscured arc. Adrian slammed on the breaks, and the car rocked and sputtered to a halt.

There they sat, for a few long moments, as the dust settled. They were half up on the curb. Across the street, the alley they had just been in was covered in the remains of brick and mortar wall chunks.

The four of them looked at each other for a long moment, relief and awe on each other's faces.

"Are we.. that is- AM I alive?"

"No. Shut up." Hal said, opening the his door and swinging his bulk onto the street. He glanced up and down the street, and then jogged over to the rubble.

The alley was completely blocked now, and there was no sign of skull-man anywhere.

Damnit.

Collin and Rich fell into place behind Hal, surveying the scene in silence.

It was Collin who broke it. Hal glanced over his shoulder at him when he heard him speak.

"Wow" Collin began, grinning, "That was uh, well-".

Hal clenched his fists.

"Collin, I swear to _GOD_. If you say that… that this CRAP right here was LUCKY, I'll bury you in that rubble." He snapped, gesturing at the ruins in front of him.

Collin's mouth clapped shut. He frowned.

He raised a finger and opened his mouth to speak again.

Fortunately Hal's phone rang right then. He flipped it open and accepted the call.

"Yeah?" He answered a bit gruffly.

"Oh, hey. This is Dan. How's it going?"

Hal grimaced. Great timing.

"Oh, Hey Dan. We got some crap news."

"Oh? Well save it for later. I have some news for you too. There's some sort of inter-dimensional disturbance near your location. A BIG one. I'm guessing it's related to the tag you guys are on? Either way, can you check it out? Try not to get in too deep if you don't need to. We're working on getting a portal open, but it could take a minute. I'm uploading the location to your phone. It's outside of the city."

"Really? That's great! Do you think that skull punk is there?"

"Who?"

"Alright Dan, we'll get right on it" Hal slapped his cell shut, cutting off the confused sounds Dan had been making.

He turned towards Rich and Collin who were both looking at him in anticipation.

"Are we traveling somewhere?" Rich inquired.

Hal nodded, a grin slipping out.

"Yup."

Adrian had been a little shaken by their close encounter with the alley wall, but when they told him they needed to get out in the boonies, stat, he perked right up. There was nothing like a zooming out of the city and over hilly embankments at 90 MPH to cheer up a guy.

When they got to the location, they saw that it was a large cave, jutting out of the side of a cliff. The four of them slipped inside cautiously. Hal held up a flashlight he kept in the glove as they stepped down into the cave.

Immediately, they gazed upon quite an impressive scene. A huge circle had been drawn on the floor in blood, with intricate geometric designs patterned on the inside of it. Candles on the ground had been laid at various points along where lines and circle edges intersected. But in the middle of it, on top of all those patterns-

It was the largest beast Hal had ever scene. It looked like a giant armadillo, only instead of plates made of bone, they were made of huge, intersecting metal plates. It was fading in and out of, as if it wasn't wholly on this side of reality yet.

And behind it, there was a man. It wasn't skull boy. This guy was older looking, with his blonde hair pulled back into a tight pony tail. His hands were raised in front of him, and he was chanting in a loud voice that echoed here and there throughout the cavernous area. He seemed pretty exciting about something, jumping around and gesturing as if in time with his own voice.

At Hal's side, Adrian looked from the chanting man, to their group.

"What the heck do we do?" H e whispered to them.

But Collin had already stepped forward.

"Hey, uh… cut it out!" Collin shouted, cupping hands to his mouth.

The man didn't even miss a beat.

The four of them continued walking toward the man until they got close. It looked like he noticed they were there, but he didn't stop his little dance number.

Hal looked from the giant armadillo that was slowly manifesting, back to dancing man.

"Dude, you can't possibly want to bring that here." Hal shouted at him, pointing to the monster as if the man had just not noticed it before.

There was still no response. The dancing and chanting continued.

"OK. Enough of that. I'll handle this." Rich spoke up.

He pulled out a tazer.


	21. The thing about luck

8-3

"Uh, Rich?" Collin began. "I really wouldn't do that.

Rich turned around to stare at Collin, and then flung out an angry hand to point at the great beast that was steadily becoming more solid.

"Do you want to fight that thing when it actually gets here?" He twitched his head back to the front and began marching straight through the strange geometries in the middle of the room without even waiting for Collin to answer.

Hal couldn't take his eyes off the giant monster. It looked like the biggest freaking elephant Hal had ever seen. Only as an armadillo: a _metal_ armadillo. Hal imagined what he could do if he was that big.

And you know, made of metal. He bet he could stand up to Derek then, no problem.

Dimly, Hal saw Adrian run after Rich as he strode across the remaining feet to where the man was chanting.

"Rich, maybe we should-" Adrian began.

"No time." Rich responded grimly.

He took one strong step forward, and jammed the stun gun directly into the chanting man's ribs, flitching the switch.

The man twitched in surprise,s topped chanting, and fell to the ground instantly, spasming. Hal never really took his eyes of the beast. That's why he was the first to notice something-

The very second that the man stopped chanting, the giant creature suddenly became more real. The lines of unreality, of fading in and out that had rippled up and down it's body slowly began receding.

They began to be filled in by the real thing, like when you smacked a TV that was flickering with snow.

"Yo, Rich, I think you screwed up, dude." Hal said.

"Hey- I just did what no one else would do." Rich snapped, his eyes flashing. He turned to face Hal, which meant his back was to the monster. It's head became real now, and it was nearly as big as Hal's chest. One giant eye looked down at Rich.

"Yeah? Maybe you wanna turn around then, big hero-" Hal began.

In the corner of his eye, Hal saw Collin ran over to the fallen man, as the poor tazered guy groaned and got to his feet. That was pretty weird that he recovered that quickly.

"Simpletons!" The man screamed. "Do you realize what you've done?"

There was a deafening THUD, like something very heavy hitting the floor of the cave. Dirt and rock sprayed up into the air in a kind of reverse waterfall.

Hal saw Rich's eyes get real big as he turned around abruptly and saw what was happening. He was about to tell him exactly what kind of moron he was, when something happened in the corner of his eye again.

"Hey look, we're sorry." Collin said. "Our bad. We didn't realize that you were actually-".

"FOOL!" The man roared, and slapped Colin hard, right on the cheek. The kid cried out in pain, and Hal was confused. Sure he'd given him a good slap but it his hand had definitely been open. Biggest he'd get would be a red mark. Then Hal noticed something weird. He took his eyes off of the beast in front of him for a moment, and looked at the man's hand.

For a second he thought he'd seen- something there. But that couldn't be right, his hands had been empty when he'd been there twitching on the ground. For an instant though, Hal could've sworn he saw something impossible- a giant bee sticking out of th eman's hand. Then he saw Collin staggering backwards and sitting down.

There was a huge stinger in his cheek.

Hal suddenly saw red.

"What the hell was that for?" Hal bellowed at the man, and turned, beginning to march toward him.

The man gave Hal the briefest glances of utter contempt, and then turned his gaze towards the big creature, which Hal knew was beginning to move. But he didn't care. He stomped right towards this prick who looked like a reject from the 19th century with his frilly white shirt and ornate pony tail tie.

"What's wrong with you? It was a mistake, and it wasn't even his fault!" Hal shouted once again, challenging this jerk to say something, anything. Hal fingered the amulet wrapped around a hand in his pocket.

"I have no time, for the weak-minded." He said finally, almost in passing, as he ripped his eyes off of the giant monster behind Hal. And with that, he turned and marched right out of the cave.

Hal hurried to follow him, but right before he could get to the cave mouth, he heard someone shout his name.

"HAL! LOOK OUT!" Adrian shouted, and Hal turned just in time to see the Armadillo curl into a giant metal ball, and come flying right toward him like an enormous metal bowling ball. The ground churned up underneath it, and Hal saw Collin weakly throw flames through the air at the thing.

They hit the spinning metal exterior and winked out of existence, like tossing a match into the ocean.

Hal fingered his amulet and canceled his gravity, just as the spinning mass was almost on top of him. He leapt with all his might and shot at a 45 degree angle away from the creature. Those huge overlapping metal plates whirled right near Hal as he rose steadily away from creature's path. One of them hit the end of Hal's shirt, ripping it. But then Hal cleared the end of those plates, just barely, heading for the ceiling.

There was a massive crash behind Hal, as he let go of his amulet before he got too high. He rolled as he hit the ground, grunting under his considerable weight, and banging a knee on a rock. He winced but didn't cry out, instead looking up to see what had happened.

The giant creature was half embedded into the wall, chunks of cave falling all around it. Several of the chunks were coming from the cave's opening, and it quickly closed off under the rubble.

They were trapped inside.

The creature made a horrible howling noise, that sounded like what a train might say, if it could bellow in rage: like a giant nail scraping across a colossal iron sheet. Then it jerked free of the wall, walking backwards on legs as thick as Hal's entire body. Rocks fell off it as it jerked itself free, and slowly turned around to fix them with a bestial glare.

There was a popping noise as Paradox indicated its displeasure over the rule Hal had just broken by cuffing him hard on the back of the head. His vision danced with lights, and he tasted the coppery tang of blood in his mouth.

Hold on, 'dox, Hal thought. We ain't done breakin rules yet.


	22. Armadillo Strikes Back

"I will find a chink in its armour at some secret juncture," Rich announced. He picked up his bunted hockey stick and held it in front of his face as if he were some kind of freaking samurai.

Hal rolled his eyes. What a drama queen.

"Great." Adrian said. "I'm going to stay the hell out of the way of the rampaging death machine."

"I'm going to uh, sit down." Collin said numbly. The stinger was still there, and it was the size of a cherry stem. His hands felt around the edge of his cheek. "Do you think I should touch it?" Collin asked aloud, to no one in particular.

The idiot Rick mumbled his little Latin phrase and began zipping around, hitting the thing here and there with his wood stick. The big beastie didn't even look like it had noticed Rick at all. Instead it took a few thunderous steps, that huge armored tail swinging back and forth, carving out a bit of the wall behind it.

The beast made a little half shriek again, opening it's mouth briefly while it look around, as if it were irritated and not sure what to do next.

Hal knew the feeling.

"You guys just keep it busy" Adrian said, I'll call up Michael, maybe he can send help or something."

The creature took a few more steps that made the whole room shake. Crushed rock dust drizzled down from the ceiling every time that thing moved. Hal moved towards the creature, fingering his amulet. He should be able to do _something_.

"Michael!" Adrian shouted into a cell phone. "It's Adrian. It's me! Can you hear me? You have to send help! A portal out of here, something! Hurry! Michael? Are you there?"

Hal walked up to him, keeping his eyes on the creature.

"Yo. So what'd he say?"

"I think he got the message. I think he said he'd try. There as a lot of static. He was cutting out a lot. Maybe because we're in a cave? Though you'd think he could do something about that with magic or whatever."

Hal grunted.

"I'm sure he got the message." Hal said. "Meantime, we gotta hang together here. And keep that freakin' thing from killin all of us."

"Riiight." Adrian said. "And how are we gonna do that?"

"Workin on it." Hal said. Then he marched over to where Collin was sitting on the ground and knelt down to look at him.

"You OK? That bitch who hit you is gonna pay, as soon as we get outta here. Count on it."

"But what _is_ it?" Collin asked. His eyes kept trying to scan down to get a look at the thing, but since it was sticking out of his cheek, all he really accomplished was making himself cross-eyed.

"I don't know man, but it's cool. We'll get you fixed up as soon as we get back. Just hang tight."

"Ok. But Hal, I think-I think this might be really serious." Collin put on a worried expression like Hal had never seen on him before. It looked like the kid was really about to lose his shit.

Hal looked down for a moment, fidgeted. Then he made up his mind, and looked Collin straight in the eyes.

"You'll be fine. I promise." He said firmly. "Jeremy knows a bunch of stuff to fix crap like this. When we get you back, he'll-".

"Because I think I might be allergic to beestings." Collin said.

Hal stared at him. He didn't have the first clue what to say to that.

"I got stung once in fourth grade, and kind of had like this gross rash." He thought about it for a second. "But that wasn't a _giant_ bee though. So it's probably OK."

He adopted one of those innocent "of course I'm not messing with you" looks Collin always had when he was telling a joke.

Hal groaned.

"Dude, don't _do _that. You had me all freaked out for a second."

Collin fell back onto his side, shaking with laughter.

"Oh that was so awesome." Collin said. "… wish… could've gotten… picture of …face." Collin said through wheezy laughs. "So priceless."

Hal rolled his eyes. Even though he was still Collin enough to be annoying, his face was definitely already looking pale. They should wrap this up quick. Standing up, Hal fixed his gaze on the giant creature, which was still making looking around the room in a slow circle, like a trapped elephant.

Without taking his gaze off the creature, Hal could see Adrian walk up next to him in his peripheral vision.

"Is Collin OK?" Adrian asked.

Instead of responding to the question, Hal said:

"You help the moron distract it, I'll clear the rocks." Hal told Adrian.

Adrian didn't say anything for a second.

Finally, "OK. I'll try. It might be easier if we tried to take the thing out first though, right? You don't want it to try rolling over you again when you aren't looking, like last time."

Rick was still running around trying to find a place to hit the thing, but mostly he had to act quickly to not get stepped on. The creature's feet were as thick as phone booths. If they wanted to actually hurt it, they'd have to climb it. Or maybe lodge it in a wall or something. Maybe he could throw it somehow?

"Yeah maybe. But I don't think I can kill all of its weight. The thing is huge."

"I hear ya". Adrian said. He looked thoughtful. "Maybe you can make it heavier instead?"

"Heavier?" Hal scratched his head. "Maybe, why?"

"Just an idea. The thing is already massive. Maybe if you make it even heavier, we could figure…something else out, while it's handicapped."

Hal shrugged.

"Sure why not?" He said.

He started stalking toward the creature, but then turned a bit wide, to get at it from the side. Would heavier work? Maybe if he tried lighter first, maybe he could at least make it light enough to tip it up a bit. If he could knock it over, he bet it would have trouble getting up again.

He gripped his amulet tightly, and approached the things massive rear leg.

Meanwhile, he saw Adrian run up the far cave wall a bit, and jump off it. He should've only sailed a foot or two, but Hal, with his understanding of Prime energies, could see how Adrian extended the force of his jump, stretching it out so that he sailed through the air right by the creature at its knee's height, as if he were superman.

Well, gimp superman who could only fly across a cave like 5 feet off the ground.

"Look at me, I'm retarded!" Adrian shouted as he sailed by.

The creature looked at him sharply with its long flat snout. As Adrian flew by, the creature snapped at him, its tail jerking tip upward with the effort. The motion missed Adrian by a mere foot.

The motion carried Adrian towards the far wall of the cave, where he tumbled to the ground.

"If I weren't so scared, I would piss myself." Hal heard Adrian's voice saying, echoing off the cave walls.

The creature made an annoyed gesture with its jaws, opening and snapping them shut like a crocodile. It took a few booming steps to one side, so it could turn to see Adrian.

Rick had stopped his useless dance, and was panting now, resting on his hockey stick.

Hal waited until that huge foot came down again, and then he touched it with the amulet. He focused on the force of gravity that was pulling on the creature. It looked like a giant unseen band of pressure, pulling down, like one huge invisible rope. He tried loosening the rope, focusing through the amulet, like he did on himself now all the time.

It was like trying to loosen a knot in steel wire with your hands. He couldn't even get a grip on it. So instead, he focused on pulling the ropes. He imagined making them slightly bigger, swelling their strength, forcing the thing down even more than it already was.

This was a lot easier.

The creature let out a startled squeal, like a car trying to brake all at once, and its leg on the other side dropped to one knee.

"You're doing it Hal!" Adrian shouted as he flew by again, this time from a more

respectable distance. "Keep it up!" He added, his voice fading as he soared further

Suddenly, that head jerked around and down, to look directly at Hal.

Oh crap. It must've felt from which direction the heaviness was coming from. Naturally the gravity would be stronger on the side Hal was pulling on.

Those black eyes regarded Hal with hate. The creature struggled and with effort, got its leg up under it again, and then, its knees buckling, it lifted a massive foot with claws the size of scythes up enough so that it hung over Hal. It had to wobble to the side to do so, since it was built naturally low to the ground.

But everything was relative. It was massive enough that it a shadow drew over Hal now. He barely had time to jump backwards while the thing smashed its foot into the ground where Hal had just been.

Its foot shining metallic foot pulverized the cave floor a good couple of feet, now that it was even heavier. Shattered rocks fired out in all directions Hal dropped his hold on the creature's gravity, and tried instead to dodge out of the way of the rocketing bits of stones.

He was about to try cancelling his gravity again to get out of dodge, when a fist sized rock shot right towards hi. There was a flash of pain, and then he went out.

When he came to, he no longer saw the massive legs standing on all sides of him. Where was it? It's not like an armadillo the size of a bus could just disappear…

Hal looked up from where he lay on the ground.

The creature was all the way towards the top of the cave, and falling back towards Hal rapidly.

Apparently armadillos could jump a lot higher than their own size. As Hal watched a giant armored creature from beyond begin to fall back down to earth like an ailing jet liner, his only thought was the he really didn't want to die in the stupidest freakin way ever.


End file.
